Could a Plugged Cat Cause This?

How about low fuel? You haven't really addressed that yet....

No fuel is not the problem it is on half a tank

Yes.

How very dare you?
It were nuffin to do wiv me guv'
Del

Explain better please. If one hold the key in the start position, the startermotor will run and engage with the ring gear.....if one rev the engine the starter armature windings will be thrown out by centrifugle force an mess up the thing completly.

If the catalisator is blocked the engine might idle well but loose power at higher engine speed and under load.

Remove feul tank cap, try again. Or measure the feul pressure and volume delivered.

Clean variable resistor by throttle valve. If you can get to it.

Thousands more possibilities!

OK I went out to try to locate my problem. When I started the truck the low fuel light came on but was real dim. when I gave it a little gas the light went out. So I was going to give it a test ride. Put it in reverse and the low fuel And the battery light came on and started to Die, put it in Neutral and lights went out and it ran ok again. Last night when it wanted to die, as long as I had the key in the start position it ran ok, Turn the key loose and Low fuel light came on and died.

I have a few silly questions for you. Did you measure the battery or alternator voltage during this? Did you query the computer for fault codes? Have you brought this to a mechanic?

To me this sounds like a bad ground or multiple bad grounds in the electrical system.

A easy test would be to make a few jumper wires from 12 gage or heavier wire yourself that go from the fire wall to the engine and from the engine to the frame plus one from the frame to the fuel tank if you have a point you can attach to.

Make sure all connection points are clean bare metal and give it a test. If the problems go away then you know what caused it.

As far as over spinning the starter with the engine thats generally not a issue being they have over running clutches built right into starter Bendix drives so they cant be over spun by the engine when starting and it has been standard starter design for about a century or so now.

While I'm a day late and a dollar short as they say. I definitely think its electrical. I had the misfortune of parking on a hill very short on gas, needless to say the pump pickup and the gasoline were separated.

On the particular vehicle I'm talking about the pump would run for about 3 seconds after you turn the key then stop. I'm making the assumption here that there is some sort of pressure switch to authorize the pump to keep running. I would temporarily bypass their relay and directly feed power to the pump. I'm assuming that would end the problem which leaves three culprits bad relay, a worn out ignition switch, or a defective pressure switch. I regularly advised people not to have too much weight on their key ring. Which is something I go off and do anyway. I would hate to think of the price of a new ignition switch that reads the codes off the key.

you have a faulty electical connection to the pump/tank. check you ground wires

Your symptoms do not match the ones for a restricted exhaust.

An exhaust restriction will limit the power the engine can make. And will slowly get worse as it clogs more. At the limits of the restriction, the engine will run hotter as it can not dump all of the heat out of the tail pipe. Follow Ozzy's post, or test the voltage at the pump till you find the problem. Good luck.

Have you checked the ignition switch? Sounds like it could be falling apart.

THX

try replacing the battery in the key fob.

Thank you all for your feedback. I will have to do some checking as you suggested. Again thanks for the feed back