I just bought a 97 Dodge Dakota with a v6, although I'm not positive I think it's a 3.8. It's a 5 speed transmission.

I have a few problems, problem 1 is speedometer not work. Any know anything about fixing it? I looked down around the tranny and I see some wires hanging could that be something important?

Problem 2 is stalling out. It mostly stalls out on highway, sometimes it will die. A buddy said it could be a coil?

Thanks,
Travis

 

well its a 3.9L v6.. not a 3.8L

 

AFAIK, the speedometer sensor is in the rear axle (thats why you can do "30 mph" doughnuts in a snow-covered parking lot) but there might also be one in the transmission so i would try and mess w/ the wires and see if that helps out at all....

for the stalling on the highway, is that operator error or is your truck the root of the problem? you say you have a 5 speed and although rare, it isn't unheard of for new stick drivers to stall it all the freaking time.

your buddy might be on the right track and I would take a look at the coils and probably do a full tune up on it to see if that can help at all.

Regardless, depending on how technically able you are, I would pick up a shop manual and go from there or it you don't know what you're doing, take it to a reliable mechanic and have them check it out.

Cheers and welcome to the forum.

 

It could be a driver error, this is the first standard I've ever owned. It just seems like it doesn't have nearly as much power as it should. It has died a few times, yesterday as I was turning, although that could have been a driver error. :/ I'm going to give it a full tune up, I'll let you guys know if that fixes the problem I am having with stalling out.

 

Without the cadillac convertor, that'll cause the check engine light to come on right? How to do I check to see the code?

 

cadillac converter? that would be sweet, when its good, the car is a cadillac, when it goes bad *poof* it turns into a geo metro. haha.

 

Have you driven a standard prior to buying your Dak?

 

I've only drove a standard a few times before this, maybe 3 or 4 times before I bought this truck. Maybe I'm just not used to a clutch, but I still think it has a slight miss to it. I'll be coming up to a stop sign and I'll push in the clutch and it'll just die sometimes. What can explain that?

 

throttle position sensor or the idle control sensor... i would take a hard look at those.

my rpms dip to about 400 sometimes but its never died on me, are you putting the clutch all the way to the floor and fully disengaging it?

 

I'm holding the clutch to the floor, fully engaged. It wouldn't be the clutch right? I don't think so. I have tested my clutch out, put it in 3ed gear and let out on the clutch fast and it dies. It doesn't spit/sputter then die. I couldn't try putting it in 4 gear at 30MPH cause my speedometer don't work.