Ill try to provide as much detail as i can here, someone please help as im moving in a couple weeks and really need this thing for my stuff.

about a week ago i went to start my 2001 dodge ram cargo van and it was squealing like a banshee but stayed running fine, turned it off as i had to get to work, tried again the next day and it was still squealing. Took the belt off the check the pulleys and the alternator was completely seized up, it only sat for a few months prior. so i took it out and bought another one.

I put the new one back in and now it wont start unless you give it some gas to get it going and will only stay running if you have your foot on the gas pedal, as soon as you take your foot off it will pretty much die immediately. everything sounds good, runs and has always run great. I had the alternator checked today and they said its good.

does anyone know what could cause this just from switching out the alternator? Only thing i did on accident, and because i was in a hurry was when taking off the positive battery cable the wrench hit the chassis and caused a spark.

i am finding conflicting info online, some sites say when you touch the pos cable to the chassis it does a hard dump or reset on the ecm, which shouldnt be a real bad thing should it? other sites say it will ruin the ecm. It has the 5.2 liter and is a 2001 ram 2500 cargo van, also, there are is no check engine light coming on

 

You didn't have to remove any connectors to any sensors around the alternator when you took it off, did you? Sounds to me like it either isn't getting a throttle position signal or an intake air temperature sensor signal. Does it run well if you have your foot on the accelerator? Do you have access to a scanner that can check to see if there are any pending codes?

 

nope there were no connectors around the alternator that i took off other than the 2 on the alternator itself. She purrs like a kitten with the gas pedal pressed, even just a little bit but if i fully release it it dies right away.

with the seized alternator on i never gave it gas but it started up fine but squealed like a banshee, stayed running as well. so i took off the old one, put on the new one, and it would only crank after that unless i gave it a little gas, every time i started it.

Only thing i did in between alternators was accidentally hit my wrench to the side of the hood when i was taking off the pos battery cable and it sparked

 

Is there any chance you can get a scanner on it and see what the throttle position sensor is showing at idle? Also, the idle air control may be acting up. It may be purely coincidental that the alternator seized up at the same time this happened. You really need to see the data stream to see where the fault is. Did you check for any blown fuses or fusible links?

 

i know i have a scanner somewhere i just need to find it, so from how it sounds i didnt screw up the computer by hitting the frame with the positive cable while the neg was still connected? some sites say thats part of a hard reset so just curious if computer is like in limbo or something for me to do something else to finish it?

 

On a hard reset they say to disconnect both the positive lead and negative lead from the battery and touch them together, while both are disconnected from the battery. I don't know if you did any damage to the PCM, but I would suspect not. I'm just curious to see some of the data stream to see if the PCM is trying to compensate for an IAC that isn't functioning. An inability to idle can also be attributed to a large vacuum leak, are all of the vacuum hoses connected? Also, the EGR valve can stick open and cause a stall at idle on an otherwise good running engine. It's either a coincidence that this happened at the same time, you fried the PCM (I doubt) or there is something that became disconnected, broken or dislodged when you replaced the alternator. Getting in to the PCM and seeing if there are any pending codes, having a look at the data stream to see if any sensors are out of whack is a good place to start to narrow it down.

 

Here is a guess...


Did you knock off or break the engine coolant sensor? Also the coil wires are close to there too.







Also something to try is the 'keydance' (turn the key from OFF-to-ON three times without starting)...if you don't get PDONE after doing the dance, then your PCM flash is fried...
If you get a code of P0351 the voltage regulator in the PCM is broke, hence needing another PCM...


Cleaning the IAC valve is really easy on these vans --remove dog house, remove air cleaner and then remove the two torx bits holding it on -- then clean IAC. The IAC can get stuck in weird positions hence needing a cleaning and manually pushing the IAC back to zero.

 

probably not gonna help with your issues but may wanna check your grounds anyway. taking a look at the IAC sounds like a good idea, just be careful if you need to reset it. there's a procedure to have the pintle retract itself. if you just push down on it manually, i think a gear/mechanism that moves the pintle will/could break. see 'finger trick'

also check your pcv valve and the various evaporative/emissions related vacuum hoses on top. they break easily if you were fiddling around in the area.

if you don't have a check engine code, i'm not sure the 'key dance' will return anything valueable (except maybe some start/end/reset recently type codes).