Damn the Bad Luck

[Dirtleg]

Well as I am driving home from work today my truck freaks out. First thing that happened is the trans goes dead. Torque converter unlocked and feels like it's in neutral. Engine just revs with no hint of acceleration. This happened while accelerating onto the highway. I checked the gauges and the entire dash is dead. After about 10 extremely long seconds everything comes back to life. I continue to monitor the gauges and everything is fine except the voltmeter is lower than normal. Still driving after about 2 minutes it hasn't recovered so I pull over at a gas station to check it out. As I slowed down the first thing I notice is a horrible squealing sound. It was coming from under the truck so I shut it down and climbed under. Smoke pouring out the starter. I cycled the key and the volts were still really low so I went to disconnect the batteries. As I disconnected the second ground it arced badly. Sure enough the starter solenoid is stuck in the on position. Cuss.

I disconnected the soleoid wire from the ignition and it's still stuck on. Could be that it melted together and the relay wire is still hot but without a meter on me I cannot check.

So I know for sure that I need a solenoid and a starter. Not sure yet why it happened but I intend to do a thorough inspection prior to reconnecting anything to power.

Thoughts on where to start?

 

[towcat]

I have had solenoids hang in the engaged position on the Mitsu starters in the past. but do double check the fender mounted solenoid first.

 

[Dirtleg]

Got to finally check it today. Fender mount solenoid is fine. All starter related apparently. This one's only a year old so I'm going to see if I can get it replaced. I hope the ring gear isn't completely shot.