Stressed out last night!
Went for ice cream. Hopped back in and no crank/no start...
I thought, GREAT!!! I might need to use my last AAA tow.
Then, I calmed myself down and looked at what I had going on.
Just drove fine and parked. Came out and no crank/no start. But... Wait! No power to anything?!
Battery was only about 18 months old and is a HD Optima red top, but I better see what is going on. Turns out the + battery cable was loose.
I have top post to side post adapter clamps. The bolt attaching the cable to the adapter clamp was loose. I had pliers in the truck, so I was able to get it a little tighter but was not great. The volt meter would start going down at idle and the engine wanted to die. I made it home, then it dipped again and dies at the end of the driveway.
Checked the clamp and the threads were stripped. Of course, it was 9:00 PM on a Saturday night! Would be me, if something happened when stores were open.
MacGyver to the rescue!!!
I inserted a couple of pieces of flat tooth pick into the stripped out lead bolt hole on the adapter clamp. It gave the bolt threads enough meat to hold onto to make the connection with the cable tight again. The cable makes good contact with the butt end of the adapter clamp now. This fix probably can't be used with other battery terminal configurations, but it worked in my case with these adapters.
After stalling in the driveway... It still wanted to die at idle. I ran the engine up at 2k RPM for a while. Then it ran and idled as expected. Maybe the computer had to re-learn air/fuel?
I used my Tech 2 to check some things after I got it running again. Ignition was seeing 13.7 volts. I used my Zurich scanner to test alternator functions and battery health (because I am still learning the Tech 2 and I already knew how to do that with the Zurich Scanner). Both tested good.
Was able to hop in this morning and get to work. Avoided a tow, free repair and all was good in the world! Had I panicked, I might have wasted a tow and lost a day of work for nothing.