1999 ram 1500 318 with 175000 all stock.

Last summer truck would just shut off driving down the road. put in neutral and restart. Then would have to wait 15-20 min for it to restart. Found, fuel pump was not running, replaced fuel pump. Still did it. Found ECM was bad and replaced. Truck ran fine till this year. Now after starting and while idleing, truck acts like the choke is on, loads up idles real rough. Step on the throttle and is fine. After getting somewhere, and truck shut off for a while, upon restarting and driving down road, truck just loses power (engine still running) stomp on the throttle, truck back-fires, coughs, sputters, and then takes off and runs fine. Did full tune up, plugs wires, (did check routing and put extra insulating covers on wires), cap rotor, and also new distributor. took out Idle Air Control and cleaned and replaced. Truck does seem to have less power and certainly drinking more gasoline than before. sort of leaning towards the cat. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanx, Al

 

i was just readin ur story, and halfway threw it i was gonna tell you the cat. and then i saw it at the end of ur post, id gut it out or replace it, depends on what u wanna do.

 

If what I'm parsing is correct, the problem clears up once the engine is good and warm and only acts up for a bit during warm-up. If this is the case, then other than the increased fuel consumption the symptom is consistent with a failing pre-cat oxygen sensor. And we're on a run of failed O2 sensors here lately, so I'm sounding like a broken record...

 

he didnt say nothin bout after it warms up, just said it clears up some when he starts givin it gas. id still start with the cat for sure.

 

Uh... well... I was going with this:

 

yea , i guess so :P wont take long to check both the 02 sensor and the cat.

 

yep i have a 00 1500 5.9 doing the same thing after a lot of other parts finally put 02s in it runs great now. hope it fix yours

 

Thanx for the ideas, I did have both O2 sensors replaced last year. maybe 5 or 6000 miles ago. (truck doesn't get used too much). CEL comes on occasionally, and seams to run better when its on. ??. Since they don't check emissions here, just look if the cat is there for inspection. What is involved with gutting it out? Does it get cut open then re-welded? or just a hammer and piece of pipe driven through it.