99 5.0 Died, won't crank.

[johnny5c]

My wife's 99' Eddie Bauer suddenly died yesterday when she was turning around in the driveway and won't turn over. When you go to try and start it one of three things will happen; just the starter relay clicks, the starter relay and the solenoid click, or the starter actually engages for less than a second. If it just wouldn't crank I would assume it's a bad starter or solenoid but the fact that it died like you turned the ignition off has me stumped.

What I've tried,

Battery shows 14+ volts on a multimeter.
No trouble codes showing on scanner.
Swapped starter relay with blower relay.
Checked all the fuses.
Tried starting in both park and neutral.
Turned engine over with a ratchet.

I've been doing a lot of reading and the one thing that seems like it would cause both the engine killing and not cranking is a bad ignition switch but just want to see if anyone has any other advice. Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[johnny5c]

Update: Ran a wire from the small terminal on the solenoid to the positive pole on the battery and it still just clicks so going to pull the starter tonight. Still doesn't explain why it died though.