Truck will not start
Asked by Robracer87 Nov 07, 2019 at 02:20 PM about the 2003 Chevrolet Silverado 1500
Question type: Maintenance & Repair
My truck will not start or turn over, I have juice
coming into the truck lights radio ect. But the only
light or gauge that responds on the dash is the
check engine light no gas level no warning lights or
anything any ideas
1 Answer
Make sure battery has a full charge and battery connections all good. Use a digital multimeter across battery posts, everything off, the generic spec for a full charge is 12.6 volts. If reading is much below that, use a charger and get it charged up. You can leave the leads touching the battery posts, have helper turn key to crank, any reaction from meter reading? Generally it shouldn't drop below 9.6 volts. If it drops way down, that isn't going to work. If it doesn't drop at all, check for open circuit, somewhere. As far as instrument cluster, I'd have to check voltage and ground for instrument cluster. I saw two hot wires to instrument cluster, one is pink and goes hot with key on, fuse protected. The other wire is battery voltage, orange wire, hot all the time and fuse protected. The ground wires for instrument cluster is black. There are two voltage circuits at the starter motor, one comes from battery, hot all the time. The other circuit goes hot with key in the crank position and starter relay is energized. You should be able to bypass everything just to see if starter motor will crank the engine. If you try that make sure transmission is in park or neutral and parking brake is set. Make sure vehicle can't move. The starter motor should ground through engine block. You can use a test light to check voltage and ground. Safety is your responsibility. any applicable trouble codes?