Hey guys,

My friend has a 95 Dokota. V8 4X4. I have been doing all the work to it since she bought it this past summer. Mostly transmission work. We were out today with a few friends exploring some trails when her truck stalled out of the blue while coasting down a hill. Would not start again. I have my truck there with my tools and tried to trouble shoot a bit but ended up towing it back to town.

Not sure where to start. i'm thinking it may be a spark problem. The truck does not try to fire at all when you turn it over even with quick start/ ether, it wont fire. Maybe distributor or ignition?

Any one know where i should start looking for the problem?

 

Need to verify what you are missing, spark, or fuel. Given that it just died..... spark seems like a reasonable place to start. Just grab an old spark plug, plug it into the coil wire, ground it out somewhere, and give the engine a crank. See what ya get.

 

Check for codes too. Codes will have set while it was running but may point you in the right direction and anyway will tell you what needs looking at other than the no start issue.there is a method to read codes w/o a reader in the FAQ.

 

Thanks for the replies. i will check for spark this afternoon and I do have a code reader to check to read for anything.

 

Turned out to be ignition coil. I'm pretty sure. There was no engine light so i did not use the code reader. Tested coil as you said and had no park. Tried on three different ground locations and on the third one got spark. So i plugged everything back in and then the truck fired right up, ran smooth for about 45 seconds then died. tested again and had no spark. I replaced the ignition coil and new spark plugs. I wanted to replace the spark plug wires as well but the only place in town that was open did not have them in stock so will replace them another time. Truck seems to be running good now anyways. Thanks for the help guys. Hopefully that was the real issue and not one of those times where the problem just happens to fix it self for a short time when you have replaced a part that was not really the issue.

I live in Yukon Canada and with out a shop right now, so troubleshooting out in the driveway is not really fun. At -20C, your beer seems to freeze to quickly...

 

Yah, it's a royal PITA when your antifreeze, well, freezes.

RwP

 

Good to hear. Two points, there is a plug wire routing TSB http://dodgeram.info/tsb/1998/18-48-98/18-48-98-v6.htm IDK that it will matter in winter up there but if you do change them no reason not to do it.
and your PCM will store codes w/o setting the check engine light off. I think chkegn only comes on for very important codes.

 

A spark plug wire routing TSB? Now that's hilarious...

Steve

 

Apparently heat affects the wires electrical continuity. My 3.9 runs smoother with the wires run as described instead of just laying on top the valve covers or hanging near the exhaust manifold. I got the wire trees at the junkyard. Hard to find.

 

Mine still has the wire trees, I guess I'm fortunate. When I replaced the plug wires I reused them. I read the TSB and I will say I didn't route my coil wire at the distributor like they recommend.

Steve