Hi All,

I just bought my first Dodge truck. I've been looking for a decent old truck for running personal chores and found this pristine Dakota at the local Ford lot. This truck was almost too nice for what I needed but I couldn't resist it is so clean and drives fantastic. I was pleasantly surprised at the power this 5.2 puts out.
I did have one small problem already, I was driving about 40 mph yesterday, not coasting, foot on the gas and it just died. I put it in neutral and tried to start it while it was coasting and it wouldn't start, it would crank over. The tank is full. So I coasted into a parking lot, let it sit for just a minute and it started right up. Have driven it about 50 miles since and it hasn't happened again. I know this could be caused by a number of things but any ideas of what a probable cause would be.
Thanks,

 

Chances are, it could be the infamous splice supplying power to the Automatic Shutdown (ASD) relay (provides power to fuel injectors and the coil) and to the Fuel Pump Relay.

Here are a few threads you can read about it:
https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...asd-relay.html

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...ml#post1818242 (This has a picture too)

The electrical splice is located near the PDC (Power Distribution Center - the black box just behind the battery, the splice it located in the wiring bundle around there)

Oh, and welcome to the forum! Post of some pictures if ya can.

 

Thanks for the help!
I'm more of a nuts and bolts guy than a wiring guy. Looks like there are a lot of wires and possible splices under the wrapping. Should I carefully remove the wire wrapping and look for a corroded splice?

 

Yup. If you go to the faq or search splice youll find pictures and info on it. I dont like wiring either(and usually end up doing tons of it, lol), but its not a bad process. It will be obvious if thats your issue.

 

Great, thanks!
I checked out the threads mentioned above, I just need a little reassurance. I am reluctant to go through the whole process of tracing wiring gremlins.
Thanks Again!

 

I found the corrodid connection. What is the best type of connector to use to avoid this happening in another 16 years? It looks like 3 wires connected to one wire.

 

I would seperate all the wires, clean them, solder them back together and use heat shrink tubing to seal them from the weather. I wouldn't use any kind of store bought connector, cause most of them don't seal as well as solder and heat shrink tubing. Thats just me though and I have never actually delt with this issue. Hopefully someone who has fixed this problem will give some advise.

 

Fixed!!
I could of never found this problem on my own. I would of had to pay my one trusted shop that I havent had to use in over a year thanks to great forums like this one! The money I saved bought a new top of the line solder gun!

I ended up splicing a short piece of wire in so I could cut out the old corroded wire.

Thanks again for the input!!

 

Cool! We are all glad you got it!

 

Well my problem isn't fixed.....it happened again. I was driving down the rode about 50 mph and all of a sudden it died. As I coasted in neutral it wouldn't start. I came to a stop in a parking lot and it wouldn't start. So I waited a minute and tried to restart several times and it finally fired right up like nothing was wrong. After that it drove great as usual for the rest of the day.
Any chance I got the wrong corroded splice? The splice I fixed was all red wires, 4 total, one coming from the fire wall and spliced into 3 wires going "forward".
Any ideas?