I have an 83 ramcharger 318 2wd auto with 306,000 miles on her. I went to move it out of the way to get firewood up to the woodburner. Upon attempting to start her, she would start, but wouldn't stay running unless I held the key in the start position. I am assuming ignition switch, correct? Or am I missing something simple. It runs for as long as I want as long as I hold the key in the start position.

 

Do you have single or dual pick-up coils in the distributor? With dual coils one is for start and one is for run. You can tell if the distributor has one or two double wire connectors coming out of it.

 

sounds like the ballast resister could have gone bad. with key on the on position you should test and see if there is positive power at the coil.

 

Mine is currently doing the same thing, and it just happened randomly. If youve fixed it, can you help me out? Or if anyone has any other ideas...

 

did you ever figure it out?

 

My 83 did this a couple times, it would also die a lot just out of the blue, I had to do what you did and hold the key forward to get it out if Denver, but when I did this it fried my ignition control module, try not to hold it there u less you really need to, mine lasted 10 miles then wouldn't start cause the module was fried.
To fix my problem I replaced a number of parts andirons was a mix of things, the pickup had a cheap coil wire on it and it was faulty and the ignition control module was not the greatest either,
once I replaced my ballast resistor, coil wire, ignition control module, and it seemed to solve the problem, it's still got a little problem with a miss down the road every now and then but won't die anymore, hope this helps