+1 on pulling the timing chain cover. At a minimum, replace the timing cover gasket, as several folks have encountered leaks around the old timing cover gasket after replacing just the water pump. Going ahead and installing a good double roller chain and gear set is just cheap insurance.

 

If you havent bought water pump yet you may want to search online.
I bought Mopar pump here https://www.moparamerica.com/index.php?p=cart
for 69.95
I also found it here http://www.factorychryslerparts.com/...3021018AF.html
for 133.14.
So make sure you check more than one site.
Just google the part number to find best price.

 

Life has gotten busy around here, so the water pump is on hold. But the last couple days the misfire has gotten terrible. It hardly wants to idle. But over 1200+- RPM, it seems to run perfect. I'm still suspecting plug wires. I just pulled them all off and cleaned off all the dielectric grease that I had put on both ends (BIG MISTAKE, I NOW LEARNED.) when I installed them a year ago. Anyway, I'll go for a drive tonight and see if that helped. I'll still order Magnecor wires tonight. Can anyone provide a link to the exact set I want?

Also, would I have stressed/over-heated other parts of the ignition system by having dielectric grease on both ends of all the wires?

Another weird thing- when I had the wires off I used my ohm meter to check resistance. No matter what I tried could not I get a circuit in any of the 9 wires. I definitely had the pins of each cable on the metal in each boot. Very strange...

And, I tried removing the heat shields but they are rusted in BAD. No idea how I'll be able to pull them out...

 

Still misfiring at idle. Not tripping the CEL though

 

Grab a squirt bottle with some water, start your truck and pop the hood. Mist all over the wires. It will be very obvious where the wires are shorting out. Get a good set of 8mm or thicker wires. Personally I've never been a fan of champion plugs. Ive had random misfire issues with them in previous vehicles. I always run NGK and have never had issues.

 

Just ordered some Magnecor KV85 wires. I'll also replace the spark plugs next week. Recommendations there?

 

I just go with the correct autolite, or a/c delco plugs. Never given me a problem.

 

Your supposed to put dielectric grease on both ends. It seals against water and helps removal of the boots. I have stock Mopar wires on mine. Maybe it's the cap and rotor, I like Standard Motor Products. FD175 is the cap, FD315 the rotor. NGK are good spark plugs along with AC and Autolite. Get standard plugs, the platinum last longer, but have higher resistance and take more energy to fire.

 

Check your old wires first, they may be fine. This will help you troubleshoot the issue rather than just throwing money at parts. You say you keep replacing them so find the issue that's causing it. If you find a bad wire, you should be able to find a hot spot, crack, etc and maybe you can trace that back to it lying on metal or something easy to fix for future. Maybe you will find your coil is bad. Maybe you will find its the distributor. Etc. Etc. Etc. Find the source!

 

Truck is idling like crap! My Magnecor wires finally shipped today. It's -25° here so I didn't want to spend too much time playing with it outside, but while it was idling in my driveway I pulled a wire off a plug. The idle didn't change. I pulled a second wire at the same time, idle didn't change. I pulled a 3rd wire, and it MAYBE got a bit rougher.. I held each cap against the manifold and never saw an arc (it was dark outside). I pulled 2 other random wires off the engine and took them inside to the garage and tested them with my digital multi-meter. No circuit. I'm surprised the truck is still running. Can't wait to get "real" wires. I still have the box from the Champion wires (and my receipt). The box says 5 year warranty. I pulled two random spark plugs too and they (surprisingly) look very nice.