Hello I am new to the sight and just bought my first dodge truck that i really like but have a problem. Its a 1998 1500 4+4 with 300,000 kms. When i bought it the guy showed me that one of the plug wires was cracked and it was sparking out through the cap and this was causeing it to run rough and stall out a bit. I replaced plugs and wires and no change. When i leave for work i will be driveing for about 30 seconds and it will start to stall and loose power but does not quit. This will last for 1 5 to 20 seconds and thats it. After it has done this it will not do it again untill the truck has been shut off for more than 20 to 30 mins. Also during this if i let off the gas and then slowly put the pedal down it seems to come out of it or if i press the pedal down hard it will come out of it. It does this when im driving or if the truck is just ideling. I noticed when i just let it idel it sound like it is sucking air somewhere under the hood. Any ideas what this would be?

 

There is a Technical service bulletin in the FAQ section on plug wire routing. Might want to take a gander at that, but, given your symptoms..... don't know if it will actually help or not.

 

if the spark was going through the cap...then you need to replace the cap as well. And the rotor.

When you do wires, you should do plugs, cap and rotor as well.

Are you talking about the distributor cap? If you are talking about the distributor cap, then you didn't even fix the problem. Although the cracked wires were a problem, but not as much as the cap.

 

welcome to df.
some air sucking sound is normal as the idle air passes the closed throttle plates via the IAC tube on the back of the throttle body. you can see/feel it if you remove the air filter.

excessive whistling can be loose air filter, missing air filter gasket (big o-ring looking thing), or vacuum leak.

plug wire - so you replaced the wires and no longer having any sparking or grounding issues? right?

intermittent stalling/sluggishness might be a weak fuel pump or stopped up fuel filter (in the tank). this can be confirmed with a fuel pressure test at the test port on the rail. should be about 49 psi, +/- 5 psi.

 

I ment the cap at the end of my plug wire. Should i replace the distributor cap as well?

 

If it was a weak fuelpump or clogged filter wouldnt it do this all the time? There is no more sparking

 

you'd expect it to starve for gas under heaviest load/fuel consumption - but it doesn't always do that. sometimes it just gets weak and fluctuates around that ok/not ok line. because the pump is so expensive and hard to replace, you need to test it with a gauge, and it might not be the problem at all. it might be something simple like a weak coil or dirty injectors.

 

Thanks for the info im going tio check the fuel pump. I try to do all the basic work myself but what coil are you talking about. Should i replace the distributor cap? Is it expensive to get the injectors cleaned?

 

Ignition coil. They do go bad, just, not often.

 

That's a classic symptom of a failing (pre-cat) oxygen sensor. Assuming the original was replaced on schedule (at about 160,000km) you've reached the normal end of service life on the replacement so it's time to replace it anyway.