No sir. Nothing to coil whatsoever. I’m wondering if it could be my ignition?.. my steering column is all F-ed up and all the wires in there look pretty suspicious. That might be a stupid thought, sorry - I’m pretty dumb.

Definitely not great at reading wiring diagrams - blame my ADD - so I’m not sure if that’s even a possible culprit given my symptoms.

My commuter car just got stolen this weekend with all my tools in it.. just spent a bunch of money replacing my tools and I don’t have enough money saved to buy another car or to throw a bunch of money at this… but I need it to run again.

Life’s a b!tch, GOTTA LOVE IT.

 

Are we havin' fun yet?

If you have another warm body, check and see if you get power at the coil at initial key on.

Check and see if there is power at pin 85 on the ASD and fuel pump relays with the ignition on. (no time limit there.)

 

So I mentioned my car got stolen - I had also left my keychain in the car - that damn thing had a spare key (or only key) to every one of my vehicles!

Have to replace ignition locks on all vehicles so the f-ers don’t come back with the keys and steal them all.

My Dodge only had one key so I had to break into it (which is stupid easy- I did it in 30 seconds) had to replace the ignition lock cylinder first in order to run tests. while I was there I threw in a new ignition switch hoping I’d get lucky… I have now accepted the fact that I will never get lucky when it comes to auto wiring.

It only took me replacing about 80 to 100 sensors/coils/whatever on my vehicles that didn’t actually need replacing to understand how horribly unlucky I am.


Anyway back to the massive pain in my uh.. Dakota :

put ignition switch in, still crank no start

Got fed up with not knowing how to figure out this ghost issue / not being able to see my enemy so popped hood and started chasing the wires back from the plug on the bottom of coil, dissecting and inspecting the engine wiring harness as I went

the green wire from bottom of coil is connected to another junction of wires all fused together on the passenger side of the motor where the wiring harness runs along the valve cover

this fusible link/ fused connection was also pretty crusty but not extremely corroded like the one under the fuse box

while I was inspecting this newly discovered junction I saw one of the wires slip right out of a crimp connector that feeds a fuel injector
(This injector wire is part of the fused connection - it is connected to the green wire that continues to the plug under the coil, maybe that loose connection could have caused an issue with power to coil? I don’t know)
The crimp connector must have been extremely loose because I was very gentle when pulling on the wires/ chasing them through the wiring harness. I re-cut wires on both sides of old crimp connector and replaced with a new one/freshly stripped wire.

Still: Crank, no start.

After messing with the wires and putting a new wire connector I do have power to the plug under coil when cranking now.

I didn’t see your last suggestion until now - about pin 85 on the ASD, but do I still need to check that now that I have power to coil?

I gotta be close to figuring this out, I can feel it.

thanks for your help and patience

 

I feel your pain. I'm in year 3 of trying to figure out why my voltage fluctuates. I hate electricity!

 

Yeah man I’m a dumb plumber - I ain’t no electrician.

 

IF you are getting power at the coil while cranking now, ASD relay is doing its thing. Does the fuel pump run while cranking? Are you getting good fuel pressure?

 

Haven’t put a gauge on it yet but it seems like the fuel pressure is good (I push down on the Schrader valve and gas sprays out) if there’s any pressure at all it would at least try to start, right?

Then it would either die shortly after start up or it would struggle on acceleration if it were a fuel pressure issue, correct me if I’m wrong.

It didn’t start with starting fluid.

Does it need fuel pressure in order for it to tell the coil to spark?

 

I can't answer your questions but the pressure called for in spec says 35-45 PSI. I expect that amount of pressure is for the injectors to be able to spray a mist.

 

Get yourself some noid lights, (should be able to rent them from your local parts store....) verify the PCM is pulsing the coil. (if you have a test light, that will work too.)

 

When should I have signal to coil from pcm?

I probed solid grey wire (pin 19 on pcm plug) and had my buddy turn the key - test light only turns on at initial key on when fuel pump is priming. Is that normal?