Hello world, I have been scouring your site for some time now and have been looking through all yalls information on what to do and how to do things. Now I'm stumped. I have a 99 ram 1500 5.9L 4x4 with a lot of work done to the truck, not so much to motor "yet". My girl has a 89 dakota 3.9L 2wd. This has been my year long project to tinker with when I had free time from my other projects. But now it's time that she wants to start driving it again and I need to finish it for her.

Here's what I have done. Had the heads rebuilt and had a valve job done, new timing chain, new timing gears, new distributor cap & rotor, new wires & plugs, new coil, new EGR valve, new fuel lines, new fuel filter, new radiator hoses, new alternator, rebuilt IAC, full set of new gaskets, and a fresh engine flush with fresh oil change and coolant.

I was going to simply do a tune up, which later turned into "damn this is broke, damn those gaskets are shot, damn that's missing, and WTF does this go to". AS you can see by the above list, I have already done a lot to this motor, and still have some other things to the truck itself to do. But not until I get the motor fully satisfied.

Here's where I am at now. I put everything back together and got the truck running. But when you put it into gear it died. I spent weeks messing around with the timing to get it where it would stay running but only if you stayed in the gas and played with it. Her friend, a "mechanic", came over to look at it. Messed around with the timing, then said get a new IAC then left. I went out to verify the IAC wasn't working and now all i get is a truck cranking over not starting. He claims he didn't do anything but mess with the distributor.

I have checked the manual, checked vacuum lines, checked the wiring harness, I got spark, I got fuel, timing is set, and battery was fully charged. But truck will not start, just cranks. If I take the spark plug out (any of them) then it acts like its going to start, but just cranks. I've done the spark test, and done the failure to start test. I'm not getting any voltage with the key on at the coil, but when cranking for 5 secs I get 5.8-6.4 volts. It's kinda pointing towards the computer. But I want to make sure that's it. Now the truck was literally just running a week ago, and out of no where nothing now. Codes that it is throwing are 12 and 22.

Any ideas from any of you guys here? I'm almost to the point of finding a mechanic shop and dropping it off and saying let me know something I don't already know.

Thanks in advance for yall's time and effort. It is greatly appreciated and valued. I have been checking yall's forum for a while now and am just now posting to see if there's anything else I can do before I buy a new computer or drop it off at a shop. If I didn't already have money invested into the motor, I would just do an engine swap for the diesel.

 

With so much having been done there are many possibilities. A couple of things you mentioned, such as the fact that after messing with timing for a while you got it to start, and how the mechanic's disturbing the distributor resulted in "no start" again; makes me suspect timing. When it ran, was it smooth or rough? When the timing gear set was replaced, how was cam timing set? Could it be a tooth off?

You should only see voltage at the coil when cranking, or when the engine is running. I believe the low voltage you're seeing when cranking is due to the coil being switched on/off.

 

When I set the timing chain and gears I followed the manual steps, timing chain was set correctly.

When I had it running it ran smooth. Only thing was when you put it into gear it died. That's all that he was suppose to look into. Now I can't get it to start.

Timing has been set to 5 degrees, same as the first time when I got the truck running.

 

Key note. Everything was changed in steps. Last thing done was a rebuilt iac. Possible that that's not set correctly? That's the only thing I've physically touched besides setting timing again.

With him I have no idea what he touched. I wasn't there.

 

Did you set it at 10BTDC and see what that does? And, are you setting it with the coolant temp sensor connected, or disconnected?

What kind of shape is the dampener / harmonic balancer on the front? If it's going bad, the timing marks MAY be shifting on you ...

RwP

 

I have tried to set it to 10 btdc, nothing. After I changed everything the best setting on the truck where she purred beautiful was around 5 btdc.

The reason why I changed out the timing chain was because we couldn't figure out why the timing was not hitting every time on mark like it should. After I changed the timing chain and gears out it was better but still not perfect. But when cranking the motor over it hits perfect every time.

Yes when I set timing I had the coolant sensor next to the thermostat disconnected. I told her friend that according to the manual it needed to be disconnected inorder to set timing. Whether or not he did, I don't know.

 

I'll try out what y'all suggested and see where that goes.

Thanks for y'alls time and effort.