BeautyandtheBeast
Newbie
Hi everyone! I am trying to get to the bottom of a start/immediately die condition in my 2000 c3500 7.4l truck. I do have a diy installed push to start ignition after the keys were lost shortly after I bought the truck 2 years ago. Part of the push to start set up does include a resistor spliced into the yellow and black/orange wires coming out of the connection above where the ignition cylinder used to be. The security indicator lamp on my dash board is always illuminated solid on which is common with the resistor bypass but I’ve been starting and running my truck with it setup like this for 2 years and haven’t had any issues until about a month ago when it suddenly decided to start acting up after I attempted to connect a newly wired trailer to my existing trailer wire harness plug in my truck. The trailer lights didn’t come on so I unplugged the connection, turned my truck off and walked away for about 2 hours. I do have an intermittent problem with my truck brake lights not working that I haven’t gotten to the bottom of but I don’t know if this is related to the bigger issues I’m now dealing with or not. When I came back to my truck the battery was completely dead so I jumped it off another vehicle and it started fine. On my way home I had to make 2 short stops and both times I had to jump it again but it started fine both times. When I got home before I shut the truck off, I checked voltage coming out of the alternator and battery and it was reading around 13.5. The alternator and battery are both less than 6 months old and hadn’t given me any issues from instal to date so I didn’t think they were the source of my sudden dead battery but wanted to be sure. After that I shut the truck off for the rest of the night. The next afternoon I went to start my truck again and the dash lights came on but dimmer than normal and instead of the normal crank noise I could only hear rapid clicking sounds. Checked battery voltage at the terminals and got sound 9 volts so I tried to jump it a few times off another vehicle without success. Removed battery and charged with trickle charger, reinstalled battery and attempted to start and still just got clicking and immediately the battery voltage would drop from 12.6/7 to around 10 or less than that after subsequent attempts. At this point I was already a bit puzzled as to what was causing the problem so I started with the basics-
*Checked the battery terminals and wires for being clean and firmly connected and no signs of damage
*checked fuses and relays-all intact and working as they should be
*Checked and cleaned grounds
* removed the section of wire harness that is installed from the factory plug and play location near the tow hitch/bumper to where the trailer connects to it thinking that I must have it connected incorrectly and it was causing rapid battery drain
* checked for fuel at Schaefer valve under intake and plenty of gas squirted out (I don’t have a fuel pressure tester so I don’t know if it’s at 60+ or not)
*rechecked alternator for correct connections
* tried to jump the starter and still just got click but also noticed the bindex was getting stuck in the flex plate. Warrantied out the starter from orilleys.
*checked wires for the starter, fuel system, trailer connector, etc for bad connections and broken or exposed wires and didn’t find anything abnormal.
After all these above steps I couldn’t get more than clicking and instant battery drain so I charged the battery up to 12.5 and reinstalled it and then started pulling fuses looking for the parasitic drain cause-no success. While is was doing this test tho it occurred to me that I could pull all the non essential fuses and try to start the truck again to see if I had any luck. As a last ditch effort I decided to hook up my jump box to the fully charged battery for some extra power and this combination worked to get the truck started finally, but then it immediately stopped. Tried to start again and same thing. Checked for fuel at the rail and it was there. Thought maybe I’d pulled a few too many fuses so I put a few that I wasn’t sure if they might be in the necessary group and tried again and same thing. Fires up great and then immediately dies. So back to checking things I did this:
*Tried plugging in the obd 2 tool I have and got no codes which I think is because the battery had died so many times in the previous few days. *Checked fuses and wires again
*put more gas in the tank
*unplugged and Re plugged in my passlock module under the dashboard…the light wasn’t flashing but this used to work before I had the resistor put in the push to start set up.
Still no changes in starting/stalling so I put a few more fuses back and tried attempted to start a few more times without the jump box and I just killed the battery again. So I gave up for the rest of the day.
Next day I tried to start the truck again and didn’t get any different results. I had decided over night that it has to be something related to the passlock system because of the way it dies instantly and doesn’t stumble but try to stay running. I did plug in the obd 2 again and it said no codes but under a different scan all modules area I found that my truck has 41 stored codes!! One of them and I think it’s the most recent was P1626 which means the correct key signal isn’t being received and the system is disabling the fuel injectors. I had read on here in another thread about resistors can change their values or break down over time and then you end up in passlock mode because the signal it’s putting out now is different than what it said last time. When I put my multimeter lead on the resistor it reads 2.7 but doesn’t hold there. Once it says 2.7 it starts dropping 2.6, 2.5 ..etc down to 1.4 when I took the leads off. Unsure of what to make of that reading I put the resistor back on the wires and tried to start the truck again and then tried to do the relearn procedure. Same start and stall situation. Tried 3 more times. Same thing. Unhooked the battery and touched the wires together to “reset” it and hooked it back up and tried to relearn again and still no change.
I do have the factory books from this forum and read about a few more tests I could do but it seems like I need a tech 2 scanner to be able to do them. The obd 2 I do have is an Innova 5610 which is supposed to do bidirectional and oem functions for most vehicles but it looks like mine isn’t one of them according to their website. I am only like a second grader mechanically speaking and a kindergartner as far as electrical goes so at this point I threw in the towel and had it towed to a shop.
The shop I towed it too and the 3 shops next to them won’t touch it because it has an aftermarket ignition, so my only choice is to get to the bottom of this myself! This truck is my only vehicle/daily driver so I’m going on a month now without transportation so I need to figure it out soon! Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.
Ps sorry this is the longest post my in history- I just wanted to make sure I included all the stuff I have tried so you all had all the info
*Checked the battery terminals and wires for being clean and firmly connected and no signs of damage
*checked fuses and relays-all intact and working as they should be
*Checked and cleaned grounds
* removed the section of wire harness that is installed from the factory plug and play location near the tow hitch/bumper to where the trailer connects to it thinking that I must have it connected incorrectly and it was causing rapid battery drain
* checked for fuel at Schaefer valve under intake and plenty of gas squirted out (I don’t have a fuel pressure tester so I don’t know if it’s at 60+ or not)
*rechecked alternator for correct connections
* tried to jump the starter and still just got click but also noticed the bindex was getting stuck in the flex plate. Warrantied out the starter from orilleys.
*checked wires for the starter, fuel system, trailer connector, etc for bad connections and broken or exposed wires and didn’t find anything abnormal.
After all these above steps I couldn’t get more than clicking and instant battery drain so I charged the battery up to 12.5 and reinstalled it and then started pulling fuses looking for the parasitic drain cause-no success. While is was doing this test tho it occurred to me that I could pull all the non essential fuses and try to start the truck again to see if I had any luck. As a last ditch effort I decided to hook up my jump box to the fully charged battery for some extra power and this combination worked to get the truck started finally, but then it immediately stopped. Tried to start again and same thing. Checked for fuel at the rail and it was there. Thought maybe I’d pulled a few too many fuses so I put a few that I wasn’t sure if they might be in the necessary group and tried again and same thing. Fires up great and then immediately dies. So back to checking things I did this:
*Tried plugging in the obd 2 tool I have and got no codes which I think is because the battery had died so many times in the previous few days. *Checked fuses and wires again
*put more gas in the tank
*unplugged and Re plugged in my passlock module under the dashboard…the light wasn’t flashing but this used to work before I had the resistor put in the push to start set up.
Still no changes in starting/stalling so I put a few more fuses back and tried attempted to start a few more times without the jump box and I just killed the battery again. So I gave up for the rest of the day.
Next day I tried to start the truck again and didn’t get any different results. I had decided over night that it has to be something related to the passlock system because of the way it dies instantly and doesn’t stumble but try to stay running. I did plug in the obd 2 again and it said no codes but under a different scan all modules area I found that my truck has 41 stored codes!! One of them and I think it’s the most recent was P1626 which means the correct key signal isn’t being received and the system is disabling the fuel injectors. I had read on here in another thread about resistors can change their values or break down over time and then you end up in passlock mode because the signal it’s putting out now is different than what it said last time. When I put my multimeter lead on the resistor it reads 2.7 but doesn’t hold there. Once it says 2.7 it starts dropping 2.6, 2.5 ..etc down to 1.4 when I took the leads off. Unsure of what to make of that reading I put the resistor back on the wires and tried to start the truck again and then tried to do the relearn procedure. Same start and stall situation. Tried 3 more times. Same thing. Unhooked the battery and touched the wires together to “reset” it and hooked it back up and tried to relearn again and still no change.
I do have the factory books from this forum and read about a few more tests I could do but it seems like I need a tech 2 scanner to be able to do them. The obd 2 I do have is an Innova 5610 which is supposed to do bidirectional and oem functions for most vehicles but it looks like mine isn’t one of them according to their website. I am only like a second grader mechanically speaking and a kindergartner as far as electrical goes so at this point I threw in the towel and had it towed to a shop.
The shop I towed it too and the 3 shops next to them won’t touch it because it has an aftermarket ignition, so my only choice is to get to the bottom of this myself! This truck is my only vehicle/daily driver so I’m going on a month now without transportation so I need to figure it out soon! Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.
Ps sorry this is the longest post my in history- I just wanted to make sure I included all the stuff I have tried so you all had all the info
