About 2 weeks ago, my wife called and said the truck wouldn't start. I went to get her and had a friend with me. I got in the truck to test it out. It would start, but wouldn't idle, if I ran it at about 1500 rpm or higher it would run, but as soon as I dropped it to idle, it would sputter for a second then die. So, my friend pulled the EVAP feed into front of the carburator. Then the truck idled. So, I drove it home. When I got home, I put the EVAP hose back on and it still idled.

So, I thought it was the EVAP Solenoid that feeds the evaporated gas into the carb had gone out. I pulled that off and blew air into it, just checked it out. Then I thought if I could put it all back together, had it run for a few minutes, I could pull codes. So I put everything back together. I left the hose off. Started the engine. Ran fine. Put the hose back on. Still ran fine. Turned of the engine. Did the on/off/on/off/on to get the code. The odometer showed code 12 which is The battery has been disconnected and the computer (ECU) has been reset. Not very helpful. So, I went to autozone and had the guy there pull the codes. He hooked up the OBDII reader, but said there was not enough juice coming from the OBDII to get a signal/code. I had noticed that the terminals on the battery were covered in the white stuff, so I cleaned the terminals with a wire brush. I went a little nuts, taking off both the terminals and really going at it with a wire brush. Put it all back together. Got in truck to test it out. Nothing. The brake light on the dash comes and the interior light by the (in the) glove box flickers. Its totally dead, won't crank at all, no radio, nothing. So now I am going from bad to way worse.

What the heck? Could it that I shook something loose? The battery is reading about 13 volts on my analog volt meter. I traced the neg line to where it feeds onto the engine and the positive line in the fuse box next to the battery and reads the same ~13 volts. So it seems like the battery is fine, connections that I could have screwed with are fine.

At a total loss as to what is going on here. Any Ideas?

 

ok, i followed you over here from the ram section. the dakota's have the same set of common problems as does the ram.

ANY low battery condition will disturb the reference signals used by the pcm, and will cause these trucks to not idle properly.

so, ignore the idle issue for the moment, and fix or replace battery terminals, battery, etc. if you don't replace your battery, at least charge it up overnight on a battery charger. it might come back to life, it might not. if any doubt, carry it to a parts store and have it load tested.

if you're confident about the battery, check/clean all the grounds. the dim interior lights, headlights, etc are your indicator that you've still got a problem. the idle issue is just more fallout from the original problem.

edit - there are a number of grounds, some from the engine to the firewall, some around the dash and drivers side kick panel.