I recently bought a 97 'kota off CL for just shy of a grand. NOW had I known what a fiasco it was gonna be, I might have given it a bit more though, but desperate times called for a vehicle.

SO, so far I have replaced the alternator, starter, ball joints, tie rods and the drivers side brake lines. I know it will need the passenger side brake lines done, but honestly I'm waiting till those just go to replace them.

My current issue is this and it is perplexing everyone I talk to about it.
It will stall. in the middle of driving the engine will just ante up and quit. And then refuse to start again for a period of time. It will also refuse to start sometimes after just sitting. I do the whole pop it into neutral and on occasion it will start then, but I really need this to not be a problem. It doesn't seem to happen as often when the weather is cooler, but the 85+ degree plus humidity days make it a serious factor. The battery is good, yellow top and tested, so I don't know what else to do....

Thoughts, opinions....lighthearted joke probably wouldn't be unwelcome either.

it's a 97 dakota v6 auto 2wd

No, I'm not doing these repairs on my own, I have a mechanically minded friend doing most of the burly work, and he's been working on cars as a hobby for close to 10 years now. However it's usually chevy's, so I thought I would turn to y'all for some advice.

 

Look into doing a scan for fault codes. It can be a crankshaft sensor.

Another thought would be the fuel pump. You can see the fuel pump functionality by renting a fuel pressure kit from autozone. They are pretty universal and will fit most cars. If you get regular fuel pressure when starting, but you see that the pressure is dropping slowly until the car stalls, it would be a fuel pump problem. When they are about to go out the fuel pumps will work fine until they reach a certain tempt and die. Then when the fuel pump cools down (typically 15-30 minutes), the car will restart and go again. Keep in mind that the truck may idle indefinitely. You would need to drive it so the fuel demand will be higher

Worth checking

 

Also, if in humid days its worse, perhaps distributor cap is letting in moisture

 

If your friend can get a scan tool, or take it to a shop and get a readout of what going on.Plug it in and save some money buying parts that don't fix the problems.Just a thought..

 

8 month old thread. You can use the key dance to get codes on a 97. Crank/cam sensors can be temp sensitive. It will just stop giving the pcm the info it needs and the engine dies. Will not always set a code either.

http://dodgeram.info/Engine-Gas/OBDI/pcm_fault_code.htm

 

code for this problem I've heard, does not come up, try the crankshaft position sensor, also they say to check coolant temp sensor and of course fuel pump ,I'm no Mach. And been working on a Chevy impala with same problem.Alot of them having this issue and no one seems to know the exact fix.Frustrating!

 

Bad fuel pump doesn't show a code. ha d the same problem on my Dodge Ram. had to drain the gas tank, drop tank and replace the fuel pump. Good luck. If it's something else I hope you find it before you go this route, not a fun job to do.