I have a 2000 durango with the 4.7. Been having starting issues off and on. There isnt anything that causes it. It just happens out of the blue for now real reason that I can see. So I havent been able to make it happen to diagnosis it and when it does happen i dont have the tools to trouble shoot. Here it goes.
Have power to everything. battery is new alternator is good. All been double checked and tested. Most of the time there is no issues and starts normal with no hesitation or anything. When it acts up nothing happens. No crank. No try to start. No click of the starter. Nothing. Changed all the relays just in case and didn't work. It happend today and I took the starter relay out and jumped what is is pin 38 and something. cant remember the exact numbers but jumping those made it fire up. So I dont know. Any help would be appreciated and thank you in advance...

 

First thing I'd try is replacing that relay with a new one and making sure the contacts that it plugs into are nice and clean....

 

I have a similar problem. Check into your neutral safety switch. What you did was basically hot-wired your D to start bypassing the NSS. Mine is located inside the tranny behind the valve body(thanks for doing that, dumb engineers!). The older ones are located on the outside of the tranny case, making replacement far easier. HTH.

 

Thank you very much. I had already replaced the relay so I know that wasnt the problem. So basically was narrowed to about 3 things and the safty switch was one unfortunatly. Thank you much I appreciate it. Well couple other things I forgot to mention. If I keep the ignition key in the ON position, within a minute or less it will just fire up and start. And no codes at all are thrown.

 

Too bad the safety switch is in the trans.......I hope that isn't your problem!

I see a ignition switch, safety switch, or incoming/outgoing power issue (short) if the relay is not bad.


With a simple multi-meter you could test for power going to the relay. At the PDC the Starter Relay pin outs is like this:

If your relay is not clicking when you turn the ignition switch then you should have 1 of 3 main problems.

Inputs:
1. No fused power to 30
2. No Park/Neutral switch input to 85
3. No ignition switch output to 86

4. Is your relay output pin 87
5. No pin for 87A

You can look at the bottom of a relay to figure out the pin out number. In the 2000 Dakota Service manual (is where I got this information) page number 8W - 10 - 4