It's a 1989 Dakota 2wd with an automatic tranny. 3.9 V-6
The truck is totally new for me to work on.... I'd rather have a carb and points.

One night it made it's way home as usual.... next morning it wouldn't start.
Time for a tune up anyway, so new fuel filter, plugs, wires, cap and rotor.
Fuel pump pumps up when key is turned on.

There is no spark coming from the coil at all, so I took the coil out for testing.
Primary side was within specs, secondary side was 1000 ohms off.
I took the coil to a shop and he bench tested it with test leads and a distributor. It produced lots of impressive white hot sparks, so the coil is good.
So why won't it fire when on the truck?
Engine has good grounds and voltage measures the same on block as it does directly on the battery terminals.

I'm looking for a list of common things that could cause this.

Code check said:
Code 33: A/C clutch relay CKT--open or shorted condition detected in air conditioning relay circuit.
( This truck doesn't have air conditioning)

I read here about the wiring harness short by the control box, but don't know if that short is common on a 1989 year.

I read about the "Auto shut down relay" and also the "Starter relay" ............. where are these located? I can't find them from the diagrams in the Chiltons manual. There are just two relays at the rear of the drivers side fender. I am asuming one is the "Starter relay"
The starter relay in the manual shows five pins and two of the connections, marked 85 and 86 are "coil ground" and "coil battery" I assuming referring to the ignition coil?
Could this be the problem?

We have a Chiltons repair manual........ and I'm not even slightly impressed with the microscopic wiring diagrams.

Anyway, I guess I'm gettin' a wee bit frustrated.... I wanna shoe horn a carbureted, HEI powered Chevy 350 into this puppy so it runs in a dependable manner.

Electronic controls on cars makes me get dizzy.... so since the olny code error I get is for air conditioning that the truck doesn't even have............. this fix is gonna be a simple one right?
(the man says, begging for a yes answer)

Thanks in advance.
Lo

I'd love an online source for a wiring schematic specific to this year if you guys know of any. I can't find much on the web after hours of searching.

 

I forgot to ask about the pickup coil, or cam sensor.................. which does this have?

 

one of those relays you see is the starter relay the other is the ASD relay, while its not as common on the sub '90 model year Daks (as with the post '90), it is still an issue with them. If the computer is giving you that for a code, try changing the relay first, see if that helps, if not trace back the wiring and replace the splice. When you are done either replacing the relay and/or the splice, disconnect and reconnect the battery (actually doing this before replacing the splice would be best). If you don't the computer will think the problem is still there and cause starting problems even tho everything is fixed, disconnecting the battery will reset the computer so you won't have that problem. As for the A/C code, don't worry about it, Dodge had a generic OBD system, so because you don't have A/C, everytime you have a fault code, the A/c fault will come up as well. Wiring schematics for these are hard to come by, if anyone does find them, or has access to them, they should post them in FAQ or something of the like.

 

One of the relays has a small, thin rectangular shaped case, the other has a square plastic case. I'm guessing the plastic one is the starter relay..... the one I need to address.
The ASD relay controls voltage to both the fuel pump and the ignition.... right? Fuel pump is functioning.

Curious if you think the pickup coil could do this also.

Thanks for the quick response and info about disconnecting the battery to do a code reset.

So you do think that splice could have been an '89 problem too?
I to think that the "one fix at a time" method is best........... cheaper too.