at wits end

When the truck died and you tried to crank it did the "dummy" lights come on (lights across the cluster)? I had a truck that would just die going down the road. If try to crank it and it just turned over and turned over. Let it sit for a few and then it would fire up and drive fine. I got to noticing thay when it would die and not crank the dummy lights wouldn't come on at the bottom of the cluster. Come to find out the ignition switch was going bad. It would lose power as I drove and would kill the truck. When I kept trying to crank it the cycling of the key would finally catch and work. It slowly got worse till I replaced it. The next truck I had after that one did the same thing. I knew what I was looking for and fixed it immediately.

good call mikey! i almost forgot about that one..

just the oil and brake lights. not all of them.

i keep going back thru my head nd trying to remember now if they all came on or not. would that explain why it wont fire at all? how hard it is to replace it?

Yeah the ignition switch would not be sending power to the coil. The switch is fairly easy to replace. Its mounted around the steering column with some screws without usuable heads. You gotta use a flathead screwdriver and hammer and force them around to get them started. Take the plastic off from around and you'll understand what I'm talking about. The wires on the backside of the switch has plugs you can unplug it to remove