Good Morning All,
While in Puerto Rico I bought a '95 Dakota on EBAY. Truck was in Illinois and was from Texas. OK body, no rust and a strong 318 with 150 k miles. This was in January. I moved back to Illinois and was going to put it on the road.
The tranny was funky and I figured it was the torque converted. As I had o drop the tranny anyhow, I decided to put in a rebuilt with watched torque converter. With tranny in I turned the key and the truck ran like crap. Rough idle, stumbles an farts @ 3000 rpm's. I can't find any vacuum leaks, changed plugs, wires, cap, rotor and rechecked firing order. I did find that I had scraped off some insulation on the O2 sensor warring harness and they may have shorted across. After repairing the harness wires it still runs the same. I tried crab cleaner on all of the vacuum lines hoping to find a leak with the motor speeding up or stalling. I had no luck. It's a long shot, but any idea's?

 

Check engine light on?

 

No it's not. Sure acts like fuel. I don't believe in coincidence. Ran perfect before. I had to have mixed something.

 

Check to see if you broke or disconnected something (crank sensor for instance) during the exchange. I'd also make sure you got the right tranny. It is possible your rebuilt wasn't built right or reused parts that were bad but looked good. IDK what a "watched torque converter" is.

 

I did break the crank sensor. After I figured out I had to take out the inner wheel well, I replaced it with a new one. Simple bolt on with no shims or spacers. Tranny shifts ok, just runs like a fuel issue.

 

Problem found to be damaged flex plate causing intermittent crank signal.