Ok friends, I'm going crazy with this truck. It just died when hubby was coming home from work over a month ago. It's been so cold and we've had so much snow that the sequence of events here is spaced out quite a bit. So he got towed home, replaced the crank sensor with 1 from Auto Zone, started up with a little coaxing. Died again on his way to work. Towed back home, tried leaving the battery cables off for a few days, (thought maybe PCM) didn't help. Have replaced coil and cam sensor with 1s I knew worked (parts Rango that ran just fine). Read about aftermarket crank sensors being junk and assumed that could be it, after all it did run for about 15 miles afterwards. Replaced with Dodge sensor and still won't start. Had a buddy check for spark and it seems like it's been kind of intermittent. We had it before, don't now, etc. Probably going to buy a spark tester just to he sure (hard to tell in the daylight) but I'm just stumped as to what could be wrong. Oh, I also replaced the IAC. I'm at a loss here, seems like I've ruled out a lot of things. Has fuel, air, spark is iffy and will test further. Just cranks with no attempt to fire. Help, I'm tired of him taking my truck to work and he's bugging me to fix his!

 

Does it die when idling or when driving? Try holding down the gas a bit when you're cranking it. Also how old is your battery? Weak batteries and bad battery connections can make the computer do goofy things.

 

The only thing it did before it's been sitting in my yard for the past month and a half was every once in awhile it would feel like it would lose power while driving, and take a few minutes to regain it no matter how much you stepped on the gas. It also would stumble occasionally at idle at a light and die. It had been doing both those things for the previous owner too since he had been driving it. Was a slight nuisance and on the "to do list". Have tried holding the gas pedal down, tried a little ether too, no changes. It's fired up only twice since it originally died out. Once when we replaced the crank sensor, and the morning after that when hubby took it to work. Hasn't run (or even attempted to pop just cranks) since then. Battery is good, been keeping a trickle charge on it too and putting a charger on it when it seems slow from repeatedly trying to start it.

 

My parents have a 99 with the 5.2L. Last year it started having issues idling, wouldn't idle smoothly, sometimes had difficulty starting, and eventually the CEL came on with an IAC code. Replacing the IAC and cleaning the throttle body didn't help. Problems worsened, starting having the same kind of power loss while driving, and stumbling while stopped. Eventually it got to the point where it refused to idle, you kept your foot in it from startup until you were where you wanted to go, and it ran like crap the whole way. After much time spent on the IAC issue, checking for vacuum leaks, anything we could think might cause this, and even tracing and checking the wiring to the IAC motor we discovered it was a bad PCM. We came to that conclusion when at the end of the problems, it just seemed like nothing about the engine was right, the idling, missing, no power etc. We got a replacement PCM off of eBay, ($80 about plus shipping) just a used one that the seller guaranteed to be working, replaced the original PCM with this one and not a problem since. Only sharing this in case it helps, might not be your problem, but ours had the same power loss and stumbling issues.

 

Thanks! I'm debating the PCM, just don't want to order 1 and have it not fix it. Does anyone here know if I can swap the 1 from my 98 5.2 just to see if it works before ordering 1? Not sure what info comes from it if it would be an issue going from a 5.2 to a 5.9....I would order 1 off eBay if I knew 100% that was it but hard to dump $150 for a guess.

 

I have a pcm from a 98 5.2 in my 99 5.2 and it does work fine.

 

I swapped the computers yesterday (so glad I haven't junked the old Rango yet!) And it fired right up! Thought I was going to have to still order a flashed computer but everything seems to be working. Still did the stalling at lights though, I started by replacing the air filter and it's better, but not 100%. So what would cause it to stall while at an idle,only in gear? And ooccasionally stumble while driving to where it bogs down? Will kick back up when I push the gas pedal all the way down, but need to keep doing it to get it to move. Clogged cat possibly? Open to ideas.

 

Could be the IAC (on the throttle body) or even as simple as bad battery connections/weak battery. Try disconnecting the battery and giving the battery cables and posts a good cleaning with a wire brush. Might just fix the problem.

 

did you reset the replacement pcm after installing? Usually a requirement to clear any codes that it may have had on the previous vehicle. After resetting the pcm, it will be in learn mode to learn your truck.

My pcm went whacky on me due to a bad battery. Replaced the battery and the pcm is still causing my truck to behave erratically. Luckily my PCM was configured with my SCT tuner.

Loaded the tuner and reloaded the programming and resolved all the erratic issues.

In your case since it is stock, just reset the pcm.