Title change...it lives...it lives!

We want to be doing the voltage checks when the truck is broken, if everything is working things will likely check out good.

 

I had a similar recurring issue on a '08 toyota corrolla that stumped 4 dealers and drove people nutz and endangered lives for 6 years, pretty scary if it happens while driving , someone could turn the key the wrong way and lock the steering or who knows
I got it for a few hundred $ because they all gave up, it was stalling at random and throwing a code for bad ECU but restart and run fine again for 50-100 miles then stall at random and then restart just fine, reciept showed they even threw a new ECU at it
I found it was a bad ground between the frame and motor, the ground cable looked OK but it was corrode inside and the insulation hid it. the ground to the starter and battery was just fine

 

Finally fixed it, I think....turns out it was a bad ground like everyone thought.

I believe the culprit was two fold. One, when I was bolting everything back in I swaped the bolt that is a body to frame ground with the bolt that holds in the fuse box to the inner fender....one was rusty, the other clean.....per my volt meter that definitely caused a reduction in voltage at that ground (9 volts only from that bolt to the positive battery terminal.

The other culprit was ....you guessed it, that aftermarket battery terminal (I think). I took it apart and found that the inside where it's supposed to clamp the wires was painted from the factory. I took a wire brush to it and scraped it clean....those two grounds fixed and it fired right up like a champ. Headlights and turn signals worked fine.

I'll still likely replace that terminal with something better....I'm not really sure I like the design of it anyway.

Any suggestions that don't involve a dealer?

 

Figured as much.

If those cables are still in good shape and the copper is clean enough to solder I'd crimp on a new battery terminal, fill it with solder, and slide a piece of heatshrink over it, that would be a permanent fix.