I have a 97 Ram 1500 5.9L 4x4 with 225,000 miles. I stopped to put gas in it today and when I tried to start it after filling up, it would crank but not fire. I towed it home and have been troubleshooting and now could benefit from those more knowledgeable on these types of issues.

Here's what I've done so far:

1) Shot some starting fluid into the throttle body -- cranks but does not fire.

2) Pulled a plug from a couple of cylinders and confirmed I'm getting no spark at the plugs while cranking.

3) Connected a plug wire with a plug directly to the coil and am getting a consistent spark when cranking.

What I don't know for sure is whether the spark is strong from the coil. How exactly do I test the voltage of the coil on this truck? I'm linking a picture of the type of coil on the truck here

I do have a digital multimeter and appreciate any guidance that folks here can offer.

Any other guidance on next troubleshooting steps would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Jason

 

Download the 96 service manual from here https://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen...-download.html.
It should explain how to test it.

Dave

 

Test the resistance between the two lower pins on the coil, should be about 1 ohm. Then test the resistance between either one of those pins and the tower, should be 10K to 15K depending on coil type.

 

You should get a nice fat blue spark from the coil, to whatever ground you choose. (I just use an extra spark plug, and ground it to whatever is convenient. exhaust manifold works great.) If you are getting a weak spark, or, tiny, and really yellow, replace the coil. If you are getting a good spark from the coil, but, not at the plug, take a look at the distributor cap, and rotor.

 

Thanks for the testing advice. @newman1367, my coil checked out to your specs and ultimately led me to discover the root cause.

As I was testing the coil, the plug cable from the coil to the distributor cap caught my attention because it had fallen out of the gizmo that holds it up against the valve cover. Turns out that the wire had been resting on the exhaust manifold and had scorched.

The bad part is it that I didn't find this out until after I had already went down another path of checking to make sure that my rotor was spinning. In order to do that, of course, I had to take the distributor cap off. When doing so, both of the screws that hold the cap on snapped! This resulted in me having to pull the distributor completely out. I was just going to drill out the screws and retap the holes, but decided since I had it out, with 225k miles on the truck I would just replace it, along with the cap and rotor.

So what could have been a cheap & easy repair ended up costing me over $100 and six hours of my Sunday all because I didn't notice the wire problem. Oh well.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Jason

 

Check your module under the Distributor I'm doing the same right now i'm not getting any fired either the coil works. But today I found out it was the module which is under the distributor cap you have to pull the The rotor button and then right there is the module

 

3.5 year old thread. I would hope he has it running by now.

Module under the dist cap is just the cam position sensor, has nothing to do with ignition timing, has everything to do with injector timing.

If you have spark from the coil, but, not at the plugs, then the coil is fine, your problem is further downstream. If you don't get any spark at all, anywhere, verify you are actually getting power TO the coil. (will only be there about three seconds after you turn the key on...... then it will go away, unless the PCM sees the engine turning.)

 

I'm having the same exact protblem except I am getting spark out of the coil but it's yellow barely lights the spark tester & it don't have enough voltage to compleat the circuit to the plugs so I'm assuming I have a weak coil.

 

What's the voltage coming INTO the coil? A weak battery can give ya the same thing.

 

You can test the resistance of the coil to see if it is in spec(the info is in the above link).