My 2001 Ram 1500 5.9 4wd 142,000 will turnover but it won't stay running. The only way to keep it running is to give it gas while cranking then slowly ease off the accelerator to maintain an idle. If I let off the accelerator to fast it will die. Once the idle is maintained I can drive it just fine. It won't give me any problems until I shut it off and try to restart.

I put a new TPS on it today and it did not help any. This problem is inconsistent. It may run fine for 2 days in a row then the next day it acts up again. Please help.

 

replace IAC. while the old one is off, clean the well where the pintle seats and make sure the little hole in the center is open. sometimes it gunks up completely closed. don't forget the o-ring around the iac body.

 

Might as well pop off the tb and clean the whole thing thoroughly.

 

If you are looking for simple things first, check all vacuum hoses going into the TB, there is one that the air cleaner has to be off to see, its right in front.
I had a very low idle, to the point where it was dying out sitting at lights, lucky for me I checked that hose and it was cracked, replaced it and have been good as gold for months now.

Probably not something that simple, but never hurts to eliminate **** like that, fouled plugs/air cleaners ect.

 

the first thing you should do is swap your horn relay (if the horn works) and the asd relay in the fuse box in the engine. its the easiest test. when the asd relay goes bad it will do what yours is doing. it will bog a little bit when you start it and you'll see the tach bobble around 600 rpms. if you tap the gas and let off it you will see the rpms drop to about 4-500 and try to hang on for a second then the engine will die. but if you rev it a lot and get on up the road with the pedal on the floor the it will eventually start to run kinda right, until you cut it off and start it again.

if that doesn't do it then go with the IAC cleaning and check for vacuum leaks.