Towing the camper home from holidays, the truck quite after backfire, missing and shuddering.

No codes, no errors, no clues. Nothing from my code scnner.

Cranks over nicely, all fluids are as they should be, no clinks, clanks or noise. Just filled fuel tank in 5.9L. 84000 miles. 3K on new heads.

Full tune before heads.

Would a Crank position sensor throw a code on a 2001?

Son says he hears fuel pump when I turn key to on, but not much fuel comes out of the rail when I press the needle.

Cranks fast but I dont know if its faster than usual, it usually starts to quick to get a memory of how fast it should crank.

 

Well, I did some more poking. There is spark at the coil and the coil wire (dist end). None at the plugs... Pulled the cap and the center pole is loose, replaced the cap, and still nothing. took cap off and the rotor turns (proven when son cranked it over with my finger in the way, it didnt slow down. .

Still after new cap and rotor, no spark. look at wires, and the battery wire between alternator and powerbox is bare behind the air compressor. still shows votage at both ends and. so I repaired it. Resetting the computer doesnt help, still nothing at the plugs, and plugs remain wet.

Ideas? Still no codes in the computer.

 

I guess its possible that I may have pushed the rotor contact over when installing the cap, so I removed and retried, still nothing. Maybe I did that again, will check tomorrow.

I can think of three things, the distributer may have a pickup lead or something inside it that’s bad, but if that is the case, then the coil shouldn’t charge and fire at all. That leaves a distribution problem, a bad replacement cap, its not installed exactly correct and its not pushing out the spark, or the ECU is firing the spark exactly between the poles of plugs. Latter seems quite unlikely.

Anyway, with the plugs wet, and no spark when the plug from 1 and 2 are removed and put into the wires and the plug then grounded tells me that the distributer is not distributing the spark. If the ECU was bad, then the coil would also be dead.

One last thought is a weak coil, if its too week to jump the gap in the dist, and the plug?

Ray

 

Well, I replaced the pick up devicein the distributer, and now by using the timing light I see several regular flashes (Fires), followed by long empty (missing fires), a single and then regular firings.
It still wont start up or appear to even fire on the engine while cranking..
I wonder if its now trying to build a map since I reset the computer?
Still too flooded?
Or is something more terrible is wrong--like the pcm. All the reading I see on the web shows "no bus" in the odometer when dodge pcm's die, and I dont see any of that and my OBDII scanner says no trouble codes (and after clearing the computer, the o2, htr, and another emiisions are not completed, while the misfire, fuel and a third show completed)


Come on experts, I know your out there....

 

Based upon what you've said so far:

I'd start with a quick 'n' dirty spark test right at the tower. Just connect a spark plug and wire directly to the tower and test as you would if the plug were in the usual location. (Don't hold the plug to ground with your hand -- use something else to clamp it down, and keep it away from fuel/fuel vapor.)

If it's still intermittent, try replacing the automatic shutdown relay with a jumper in the proper terminals of the connector block (30 and 87, if memory serves). If that cleans up your spark, you've got either a failing relay or intermittent coil voltage to it, which you can measure with your voltmeter; measure right at the connector pins. If it's rock solid battery voltage with the key on, the relay is toast. If the power to the coil of the relay is intermittent, you've got a problem that will require the schematic for your vehicle.

Good luck with it!

 

so... it was the coil. I couldnt see that because I had just replaced it about 6 months earlier.

 

Gotta love those high quality parts. If you can find them!

Glad you got it fixed.