My 1988 Dakota 3.9 239 V6 kinda jerks when accelerating from a stop. When I bought the truck, last October, I installed new spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap, distributor rotor button, & fuel filter. I run SeaFoam almost religiously thru the gas prior to fill-up & sometimes I will do the SeaFoam treatment thru the intake hose off of the brake booster.
Any ideas?

 

Your description of the jerk seems ambiguous. When you say jerk do you mean it stops accelerating in sprurts?

 

As it accelerates, it kinda "skips" along and finally clears up.

 

When is the last time the truck had a tune-up?

 

My original post says last October is when I changed the spark plugs, plug wires, distributor cap, distributor rotor button, fuel filter.

 

Unless you drive a LOT, that shouldn't be the problem then..... getting any codes?

 

No codes yet. I hope to clean the throttle body this Saturday

 

When did it start to happen and what was going on then?

 

It started a couple of days ago. Idles fine, just when you give it gas it kinda skips a little bit.

 

I don't have a good idea myself yet; but I have three questions.

1) Is the motor stuttering, or is it not engaging into gear properly?

2) Have you done the "Spray bottle with water at night" test on the plug wires (that's where you get it dark, and spray some water from a spritz bottle on the plug wires with the motor running; if there's corona leakage, it tends to show up. Have to have it dark, though; although if you DON'T have to have it dark, that's a REAL BIG giveaway *grins* )

3) Do you have a tach on your truck, or not?

RwP