Hey folks im a new old guy, who has his first dakota, 1992, 3.9, i like the truck it has 84 k but i have a problem, i replaced the ignition switch, rotary button and distributor cap and pick up coil in the distributor, coolant sensor, and new battery. My problem seems to not show up in the codes, when im driving along and generally not under a load, its like it misses a beat, or is just off and on real fast, sometimes you can drive several miles without it doing it and sometimes it might do it 4 or 5 times in a round trip to town of about 15 miles, sometimes it goes longer without doing it, it hasnt happend when first cranked only after i drive a few miles. It feels like it just shuts off for a fraction of a second enough to call it a miss, would any of you guys have any experience with this kind of problem, it is intermittent and not even anything close to what you would call regular. thanks in advance

 

Charle2dogs, sounds like the wire harness may have some corrosion or is worn-thru and shorting intermittently. It's a known issue in early 90's Dakotas. To check, lift the wiring harness up off the inner fender well on the driver's side. Twist it so you can see the bottom and look for chafing or corrosion. If it looks OK there could still be a corroded splice inside the harness in that area, so you'll have to open the harness cover and look for the splice (several wires bundled to a single point). Once you find the splice, look for signs of corrosion, then clean and re-solder all the wires back together if you find it's bad. Here's an excerpt from the troubleshooting sticky in this forum: