Well, I just bought an 02 Dakota QC 4x4 with the 4.7l. I think I i have created a problem while cleaning it yesterday. I sprayed down the engine bay with cleaner and then pressure washed it, now I have a miss in the engine. It acts like a dead cylinder. It did run great before I cleaned on it. Any ideas on what may have caused this and were to start looking? I took it by autozone to get it scanned but all they came up with was abs codes and canister leak codes.
any help would be nice.

Here is my "new to me" truck.
dodgetruck-1.jpg

 

did you get the alternator wet? you probably shorted out some wire.

 

I am sure I did but it is still charging fine.

 

You probably have water sitting where your spark plugs are located. Happened to me once. Remove your plug wires and get some paper towels to wick up the water. Also if you have access to compressed air at your place, i would dry out those areas. If not, I just used some canned air and blew air around the spark plugs. That removed a lot of the water too. Whatever is left will just burn off.

Give that a shot and let us know how it goes.

Do not remove your plugs until you know for sure there's no more water trapped around them.

 

i will give that a shot here in a few min. that makes since seeing as how the plugs are up and down as opposed to at an angle on the side of the head.

thanks

 

Its water.Blow the water out with compressed air, a leaf blower, or a shop vac.

 

It started raining on me. I will check on it tomorrow.

 

Does it start fine? When my cam and crankshaft position sensors were starting to go it would start like an old motor with a carb. This happened to me twice after a run through the automatic car wash. After it happened the second time I replaced them both and it hasn't happened since. However it was showing me at least one of the two codes when I read it with my scanner afterwards. Just an idea though. HOPEFULLY you didn't burn up your PCM though because when I got my truck they washed the engine bay and it was bucking and not running right and really weak sometimes and they finally came to the conclusion it was the PCM.

 

This happens to me every week. I have a CAI and everytime I take my truck next door to have it detailed it sucks water into the intake. I t ry to tell them to turn it off while they run it through their tunnel but I get the "No hable inglas," bit... free car-wash cant gripe much. If it doesnt clear itself out by driving it a few miles I'll usually seafoam it, or take the plugs and spray some WD-40 into the combustion chamber... has never failed to do the trick for me. If youd like to pin point the misfire and dont have a scanner, 1-by-1 remove the harness for each of the coils and whichever one doesnt make it run worse... spray that one. Mine is usually the rear two cylinders 7 & 8. Ive done this dozens of times. It works.

 

Well, I changed the plugs and one of the coil packs and it still is not running like it did before the wash. It starts fine but hesitates under load.