Dash lights on startup gone??

[720Girl]

Well, usually when starting my truck the battery, oil, seatbelt and sensor light would be on until I turned over the engine. Now the only light that comes on is my seatbelt light? And she's getting harder to start like there's a short in the battery? Could this be my alternator?

[Draker]

Probably a bad battery, I'm guessing it's getting colder over there and that will start to show in a weak battery. Although the lights should still light up with the key in the run position.

 

Pull the battery and have it tested at a parts store.

[wayno]

Check fuses and fusible links, the ignition and oil lights should come on,

[datzenmike]

A non running engine battery voltage should be about 12.6 if fully charged. Have it measured.

 

If you connect jumper cables from another vehicle to your battery, does the problem lights and start go away?....

 

 

No..... Clean and tighten the ground cable where it bolts to the intake manifold. Clean and tighten the positive battery cable where it connects to the starter.

 

 

Yes.... Clean and tighten the battery cables and the battery posts. If poor connections, the battery may not be re-charging properly too. Drive it to make sure the battery is fully charged and see if the problem is now gone.

 

Yes... problem gone

No.... problem still there. Battery may be bad or charging system not working

 

 

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[flyerdan]

First thing to check is the grounds.  The idiot lights draw very little current so they should light up with a very weak battery.  Since we know that the oil pressure sender opens the ground to shut the light off that's a pretty good clue.  Can test with jumper cables, just jump the neg post to another ground, if things light up start cleaning cable ends.

[720Girl]

Guess what it was! My O2 sensor was unplugged! :O

[datzenmike]

Well, usually when starting my truck the battery, oil, seatbelt and sensor light would be on until I turned over the engine. Now the only light that comes on is my seatbelt light? And she's getting harder to start like there's a short in the battery? Could this be my alternator?

 

 

Guess what it was! My O2 sensor was unplugged! :o

 

 

Uhhhh... no. What you describe cannot be. Only the California emissions vehicles might have the ECC and an O₂ sensor. The O₂ sensor is an input to the electronic carburetor's ECU and has nothing to do with the seat belt, oil or whatever dash lights. The O₂ sensor is located in the exhaust manifold. If you have one and it was disconnected this wasn't the problem.

[wayno]

If you started moving wires around you may have temporarily fixed it.

I know that just that has happened to me in the past, one day my dash lights(most of them) went out and I started fiddling with the plug on the positive battery post going to the green/black wires, I started hearing electrical discharges/arcs, it happened to be the connections inside that fusible link plug making contact and losing contact while I wiggled the plug.