On my drive into work this morning, I noticed that the check engine light on my 1988 Dakota 3.9 V6 come on. Since I have owned this truck, I have never seen it come on before. The truck is not doing anything different.
Any idea on where to start?

 

Get the codes read, and see what it is whining about.

 

 

I'll emphasize what Robertmee and HeyYou said - read the codes.

Without that, the only good answer is,

"Something's wrong. Needs to be fixed, maybe."

RwP

 

In the video above, how did he get code 55? Do you count the number of times the check engine light flashes?

 

Yup..

 

One code you should get every time is a 5 5 ... which is "End of Codes."

If the battery has been disconnected in the last 50 run cycles, you may also get a perfectly normal 1 2 - which is "Battery disconnected in last 50 run cycles."

(The 12 is a problem if nobody's touched the battery; perfectly normal if someone HAS touched the battery cables.)

RwP

 

I hope to check this out this weekend & I will post the results

 

The codes I just seen are:
Code 46 & Code 52

 

There is a link to the list of OBDI codes in the FAQ section or you can use this www.dakota-truck.net/CODES/codes.html
It is very weird but my bookmark to the linked page works fine the link is not working from this website. Try copying it and pasting it in a new browser. Copy Paste did not work for me. I noticed that the pasted version was pasted here to read different than what I copied I guess the website prevents certain links. Anayway I rewrote it to be correct so now you can copy it and paste it in another browser.