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slagona
06-08-2004, 07:20
Don't let this happen to you:

Hopped in the suburban yesterday morning, went to crank her over - almost nothing!!!

I sat there and thought about it for a few minutes - thinking there were no warning signs of this problem......

However, over the last few months, I seem to remember it starting easily when cooler our - harder when warmer out. I dismissed it each time thinking diesels don't start harder when warm out.....

I was also ignoring the progressively slower cranking speeds. It was such a gradual decline over a long period of time - I didn't really notice the cranking speed was diminished.

Final analysis: One battery with a least one completely dead cell. Not bad for 180K miles, 5-6 years of service.

Just remember that warmer weather shows the true condition of your batteries and cables.

The only way I could get it started was by removing the dead battery and putting in a different one to get it started. The only battery I had on hand wouldn't fit in the tray, so I had to disconnect it after starting, drive it to get new batteries - leaving it running the whole trip - then replace them at home. My cranking speed is now back to where it should be - about twice what it was before.....

Shuck
06-08-2004, 10:13
I had been having similar problems. Thought it was frozen starter, dead batteries, etc. After a few talks with my mechanic we determined that it was actually the positive terminal connector on the battery that has two terminals that get bolted to it.

There is an R&R article on the website, but I completely replaced the connectors on the cables with new ones from the auto parts store as well as substituting high quality audio (gold plated) battery bolts for the OEM ones. Sometime this summer I'm going to replace the entire wiring with welding grade cable (unless anyone has an opinion that high quality wiring designed for car audio would work) and top post batteries and connectors. That GM side terminal connection is just not very reliable.