That reminds me of a time when I accidentally hit a light switch on my dash which controls a floor light on the passenger side. It isn't very visible during the day. I parked for a few days and my batteries were completely drained. It took a bit to find the problem. I hit the switch with my knee when I exited the truck.

 

You Sir, Have a bad connection somewhere... The 0 power thing happened due to the little connection u did have, having gotten hot and completely interrupted. Look for corrosion, loose wires. One good trick is to feel for heat, wich is a sure sign of resistance wich produces that heat. This is best when the truck has not been running obviously...dont burn yourself.

 

Well, it happened again about 2 weeks or so ago. Drove for about 6 hrs, went in to scan some paperwork, and when i came out....zip. I call on-road, and they have a guy from a shop across the street come over, and he found the problem. Some newer Volvo trucks have this 'engine shut-off' switch that a company can lock after turning it 90 degrees, to prevent the truck from being started. This guy found the back of it, where the batteries are connected then continue onto the engine, were black and arcing when i try to start it. He jiggled it..and it worked just fine. I stopped at a shop in Gary, they didn't have one. Stopped at my home terminal, and they had one, but they don't care about how many units they work on per day, just do what they can to milk the clock (hence the 15 trucks+ that always sit behind the shop, and the 2-3 stories i hear when i'm outside smoking a cigar, about how someone has been in the shop for 3-4 days, and wont be done till tomorrow). So they dead head me up to our terminal in Iver Grove Heights, MN saturday......nobody bothered to find out if the shop was open Sunday......it is not. But today...it is fixed. I saw the old one sitting on the shop floor, getting new steers, a new RF shock...and i'll be as good as new.

 

That;s the battery cut off switch. I have one my Peterbilt. Mine sits right above the battery box on the frame. Every time I wash the truck they seem to get that switch moved to the off. I also use it when I leave the truck parked for a few days.

 

They could have just took the cables off of the shutoff switch, put a bolt thru the eye terminals, tightened it to connect the cables together and wrapped it up good with electrical tape, secured the cables with zip ties and it would have been fixed immediately.

Of course then it wouldn't have had a disconnect switch in the circuit, but it WOULD have power!

.

 

we have an 09 pro-star and that same thing has happened 3X to us. first time we had driven for 38hr's and turned the truck off to take to the speaker box at the gate and when we tried to start the truck nothing.....? had a short inside one battery. 4 months later same thing happened to the same (replacement battery) 8 months later same thing with a different battery.

the pro-star batteries ONLY have a 6 month warranty......!

 

I had this issue bite me yesterday on the scales at a landfill. Turned the truck off to talk to the weighmaster and it acted like the batteries were dead. Got pulled off the scale while trying to pop the clutch and got nothing. Sat there for a few minutes, check all my connections, even tried to jump it at the solenoid with a screwdriver, nothing. Called in and they had me turn the key so they could hear the sound and it magically cranked but since I wasn't expecting that I had already let off. Tried again and got nothing. They get there an hour later and everything checks out, it just would not crank. Out of the blue it suddenly turned over and started when I tried it again. Next 3 times I tried it, everything was fine............musta been a ghost at the landfill f-ing with me. No corosion, no loose connections, no cut off switch on this model.

 

you driving again, ford?

(p.s. not really thrilled about this new CAD layout...guess i'll get use to it.)

 

Yep, everything was fine yesterday. Pulled into the shop in the morning and just for the heck of it we pulled all the battery terminals loose and cleaned them along with attempting to tighten down all the grounds. We found a very tiny bit of corrosion down in 1 terminal connection on the ground side and that's all we could come up with as causing it to happen, none of the grounds were loose. When it started the other day, the mechanic has just hooked his meter box to the starter on positive only and asked me to try it and got nothing. He then hooked his ground to it and tried it and the truck started. So it led us to believe that the very tiny bit of corrosion on that 1 ground terminal caused the whole problem.

 

If this happens in the future, check the main relays. Most trucks I’ve been in and the Petes I’ve owned have two main 50 or even 75 amp relays. In most trucks, the proper way to start them is to turn the key to the on position and wait for a few (usually about ten) seconds. During that time you will usually hear some clicking and the gauges may cycle to maximum readings and then back to zero. That clicking you hear is the relays cycling. After having a truck stolen a couple years ago, I won’t leave mine unattended anymore without removing the main 70amp relay. Makes it kinda hard to steal the truck if you can’t start it and I doubt most truck thieves aren’t running around with the correct spare relay in their pockets. That is until they read this post.