for about a month everytime i turned the key on my cummins, it would like click then start... it would repeatedly doit then one day nothing. sat their clicking all of a sudden starts.. 2 days ago i went out to start it and nothing.. no interior cab lights come on, no power whatsoever even with battery charger hooked up. now even if these batteries are junk wouldnt i have gotten some sort of power from the charger to make my interior lamps come on? the batteries were put in in 05 but still their has to be a short i think for nothing to come on and also note the clicking that use to occur earlier...? if their wasnt a foot of snow under my truck id go check it out but until that snow melts ill investigate through here ... its not my daily driver thanks in advance

 

check connections at your batterys [posts] make sure their tight check connections at starter and make sure your got a good ground

 

If the batteries are shorted internally, a battery charger or a jump start won't supply enough juice to power anything on the truck. Best thing to do is remove the batteries from the truck, bring them someplace warm and let em sit for an hour. Hook the charger up and charge em an hour each. Obtain a load charger and load test them per the instructions on the load charger. If they test bad, well need new batteries. If they test ok, leave em on the charger an hour a piece. While your waiting, clean and inspect all cables, terminals, and ground points.

 

even if the batteries are shorted on the inside the charger will have a complete circut and will power the other parts of the truck just may not have enough to start it. my guess is the ground because even if you have a bad terminal or connection on the starter there is a seperate wire that runs to the fuse & power ditribution block so the charger would still power the truck. check the battery fuse cause if its blown then you wouldnt have any power at all. and it could of been the culprit in the earlier clicking and then starting cause it could of had a small gap in it and the current could of been jumping the gap until it finally just wore it down enough to not be able to make a connection. on top of that i still think wildbill was right in saying thaw the batteries and then load test them

 

Well im charging from the 2nd battery so if the 1st battery is junk circuit won't complete right? What ground should I check first and where's this fuse....their was a bad connection somewhere though because of that clicking that occured...its cold as ***** outside I live right on the water or id be out their right now

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Also to mention, the time be for last went to start the truck, I turned it over and it cranked a few times batteries were clearly dead...pulled my key out shut the door and the truck was still trying to turn over with no key in it...

 

Check all of the grounds starting with the grounds cables that go to the frame or block. Electricity does funny things especially when its cold probably had a relay or the starter soleniod that stuck causing it to crank with the key out. Just check all possible grounds and I would do like wildbill said and have the batteries load tested and would possibly replace them if marginal 05 is a long time on batteries not saying that they cant last that long would just be good PM to go ahead and replace them.

 

Your starter contacts are fried....it's going to take out the fuel shutdown solenoid here so if you don't fix it if it didn't already.

 

my truck was doing the same thing ... thought my starter was going out or my batterys were fried ... but it turned out that the starter solenoid cable runin from my batt to the solenoid + was all corroded so i would peal away the insulation on the cables and check them and make sure they are good cables ... cuz they could have good conections but the cable itself could be bad

 

even if your first batt is junk the circut is still complete cuz the two hot wires are connected at the terminal and the ground from both go to the block/frame. it doesnt rely o the batt to complete the circut.i would check into replacing the starter silinoid like blkjack said, any kind of corrosion could cause it to stay connected when the key is off,especially if you live on the water. corrosion is always gonna be a problem for you. the first thing i would check though is grounds, solve the battery problem and then work on the starting problem