hello everyone! new guy here, been looking through some threads trying to find a problem the even remotely resembles mine! first off, I'm a mechanic and have years of experience under my belt.....a friend picked up a 99 ram2500 4X4 plow truck with the 5.9, 50,000 miles.....picked it up, it was running but lacked power, didn't really want to go over 40 mph, he did a tune up and then it sat for a day, wouldn't fire, sounded like fuel, did a fuel pressure test and the pressure was low, new fuel pump installed got 50 psi now, still wont start, new camshaft sensor, three different crank sensors, still no go, the old one had the most magnetic force, at least 3 times more than the duralast and even the BWD one, the flywheel looks fine, swaped out throttle body and all the sensors and injectors with a running vehicle, swapped the computer into a durango, it ran fine, checked the fuel, very flammable!!, checked the compression, perfect in all cylinders, checked the injector pulses, all good! brought it up to #1 tdc, check the distributor and firing order, right where it needs to be. all is firing! pulled all the plugs and had a buddy crank it with all the plugs grounded, every one it firing a good spark!! why with everything, spark, fuel and compression will this thing not run?!?!?, it sounds like it wants to fire on the first pop but then nothing! ya floor it and it pops a little and sounds like no gas...ya know that sound!! BWAAaaaaa......maybe someone here has a clue?!?!.......been messing with it for a few days now!! any help would be most appreciated!!!!!

 

double check to make sure your not 180* out on the dist.

 

yea gotta be something with gettin the computer to let it start in my opinion.

 

Pull the upstream O2 sensor out. See if it starts.

 

not gonna be the 02 sensor if he cant even get it to run. nothin is even gettin to the 02 sensor. :P

 

I was more thinking a clogged cat.

 

clogged cat aint gonna keep from startin either, just will run like ****. will be choppy, but will still run.

 

That depends upon how solidly plugged the cat actually is. I'd do the test. It's quick, easy, and foolproof unless you have a bigger fool than the OP seems to be.

 

definitely not 180, pulled number one plug brought it up to compression stroke and lined up the balancer and the dist is pointing at #1. the dist never been out. yesterday I cleaned all the block grounds and grounds to the computer just cause I'm running out of things to check! pulled the underhood fuse panel to check for corrosion, all is nice and clean, I never heard of a cat so plugged that it wouldn't run for at lease a few minutes until it built up pressure but hell, I'll give it a try...I'd **** on a spark plug if I thought it would help!, I noticed when taking a closer look at the flywheel that it appears to have been rubbing on something just on the outside of the crankshaft diameter....could the flywheel be cracked at the flywheel bolts and it moved and got stuck off sinc? I tried holding the flywheel with a bar while my friend used a breaker bar on the crank bolt and went back and forth to see if I had movement but if it did break it's stuck where it is now! I might pull a valve cover to see what the valves are doing today.....this one is crazy, but I'm sure when I figure it out I'm gonna smack myself in the head with a loud DOH! emanating outta my mouth!

 

I thoght it might be 180 out because your friend did a tune up. Sometimes people move the distributor for ****ts and giggles.

My drive plate(flexplate) had the same goughing near the crank. I think rocks got in and were ground between the rock guard and the drive plate. I had my transmission out and couldnt find any other reason for the gouging.

Pulling the 02 is a good idea. If you have spark, fuel, and compression, the last thing is flow. You must actually flow air through the intake to get the motor running. If the exhaust were plugged, or you rounded your cam lobes off, your nod doing ****. Static compression readings will still be the same though.