Old School Bewildered
 

Working on 2001 Durango 4.7 OHC Auto 174000 miles. Son driving on highway only about 10 miles from home Durango overheats & shuts down (he said temp gauge never pegged & he knows we need to know all) would not restart even after cool down. I stop on the way home try to start it & ah I've heard that no compression sound & the little puff out the exhaust periodically all to many times. get it home, pull it down crank sprocket @ 6 idler sprocket @ 12 cam sprockets (both banks) V8 @ 12 R L & alignment holes dead nuts across. Now like I said I'm old school self taught shade tree. so I get stumped on some of these newer vehicles on some things. So help me be this boys hero one more time (even though he's 35)...55. Thanks for your time

I don't really know anything about the 4.7 either, but did you try a compression test? If nothing seems wrong mechanically it might just be some electronic issue, but it's hard to say since it overheated.

No I have not, I understand the 4.7 to be an interference engine. so didn't want to crank it to much until I knew if it was out of time or not.

If I read your post right the timing was still fine? If so I'd go ahead and do a compression test if you said it sounded like there was low/no compression.

Yes U did read it correct & I will run compression test tomorrow. Thnx

If that all checks out I'd start looking at things like the crankshaft position sensor. I don't remember, was the check engine light on?

OK, sorry been out of town working. got it all back together compression test fine, had it running once but it sounded out of time & hard starting. like i said old school if this was happening on a distributor engine i would move the distributor. so is this what the crank or cam sensor replaces? the cam sensor controls spark & injectors correct but works in conjunction with the crank sensor ? oh don't remember if the check engine light was on & battery has been diconnected since then. Thnx

As far as I know both of the sensors contribute to the computer controlling the ignition, fuel, etc

Ok thanks fairly inexpensive to replace