2004 Durango - no start

Buddy's wife's car. Apparently she was driving in the rain yesterday and "customer states" the interior lights were flickering a little. Battery terminals are clean and tight.

Ran fine until parked. Next morning, no turn over at all, but he thinks the relay was clicking over once. Interior lights and horn work, no current draw when you turn the key to start.

Buddy went underneath and found a control connector at the starter was disconnected. The retainer is busted apparently. He reconnected it, and now when the relay clicks you can see the interior lights dim, but the car still won't turn over.

Solenoid? Something else? I told him to check the grounding straps. Engine was replaced with a used 40k-mile unit about 2 months ago.

Smack the started with a rubber mallet. Wash, rinse, repeat. That'll at least test out that starter... kinda... That's my first guess always.

If its pulling enough amperage t dim the lights, its gotta be sending it somewhere.

Forget the rubber mallet. Hit it with a METAL hammer. Just dont hit it so hard that you bend the case.

This may be a longshot, but can whoever is listening to it tell the difference between a relay clicking and the starter solenoid engaging? If the solenoid is engaging and there is no zoom zoom action it's almost certainly a bad starter.

If it's just the starter relay it could be wiring either on the supply or starter side of the relay. If its some OTHER relay clicking, then we really know nothing.

Try jumping it?

Can you rotate the engine by hand ?

Those are a funny beast as it is the first of the super high zoot models that required the new StarScan tool.

What I remember about the one I did is that even after swapping the ASD relay and new PCM, was that there was a tsb for some sort of wiring issue with something causing the no start.

Vigo: at first he said it didn't click at all, and I told him it was probably the relay. Then he said it clicked even without drawing power, so I moved the diagnosis down the line to the solenoid. My next suggestion was the percussive maintenance to the starter body, but my friend just had shoulder surgery so I don't know if that's out of his ability currently.

I assume the engine will turn, because it drove to the parking spot. I know that's not a guarantee, but no reason to suspect it won't.

Thanks for the help, everybody!