Hello everyone, lets start out by a little description of my truck its a 1997 dodge ram 1500 5.9Liter. It is an awesome truck that I have done many things to over the last 6 months.

I just had a new tranny put on and installed an external tranny cooler, put in a new PCM and new Fuel pump yesterday. Here is the problem I am having.

Three months ago my girlfriend drove the truck into town and then when she went to start the truck it would not start. Fuel pump would come on but the truck acted as if it was not getting any fuel. I unhooked battery and eventually the truck started with many attempts and pumping the gas. The truck drove just fine for over a month then it happened again only this time it would not start for 5 days. after sitting for hours it would sound as if the truck was attempting to start with what fumes would gather in the lines. Then on the fifth day I went out kicked my fuel tank thinking it was the fuel pump acting up and bam it started right up. After this I installed a new fuel pump and filled the tank full of fuel.

I just went on an offroad trip in which we went fifteen miles without a single problem no over heating nothing and just like that my truck shut off and is doing the same thing. sounds like its not getting fuel and smells funny. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should be looking at or start changing before I give up and take it to a shop. I would really like to fix it myself as I love working on my truck and could use the savings of doing it myself.

Thanks for any suggestions I appreciate it.

 

hey gabriel im not sure this will help but here goes.

i had a similar problem a few months ago,
fuel pumped kicked, replaced it and 3 weeks later my dodge would have start up issues,
and one time just died on me while driving

turned out it was a bad ignition coil. little guy on passenger side of engine near the alternator. held on with two tiny bolts
cost a few bucks at local autozone and hasnt had a problem sense/

if you are trying to crank it over and you can smell fuel then its the coils or wires that arnt causing spark.
if you cant smell fuel then its the pump or fuel lines messed up...

 

Ok thank you bigred any suggestion is a starting point I will check that out first thing in the morning doesn't sound hard to do and I am sure it could use it none the less. thank you very much I appreciate it alot.

 

Did it "click" when you turned the ignition or did it do nothing? Mine did both.

I was having some transmission and starting issues. At first I thought my starter was going bad. As for the transmission I had the linkage on the transmission adjusted which helped some. I replaced the plugs 2 times (the first set made everything worse) and then the coil. The plugs appeared to help both issues some but when I replaced the coil I hadn't had any problems starting it and the transmission issue improved a lot. I'm going to get my mechanic to change the distributor cap for me and see if that helps even more (the plug wires were changed last year).

 

right now when I try to start the truck it just tries like normal to turn over but will not start. I might as well do both distributor cap and plug and wires while I am at it just to tune it up a little.

 

Just had a buddy that'd bought a 97 1500 with the 5.9 call me up saying it wouldn't start. Ofc, I was 30 miles from him so couldn't see or hear or smell nothing to tell him where to start looking. So I'm tellin him where the starter is (check the wires), tellin him where the coil is (check the wires). It had rained right before he called, and as experienced with my Ram, im tellin him to check the dist cap for cracks. My truck wouldn't start when it rained, until i found the cracked dist cap. happened twice. he said when he turned the key to on, it sat at 12-14 volts, but when turned to start position, the volts would drop to 7-8.
He ended up having it jump started, and drove to where he bought it. They dropped in a new battery, and he hasn't had a problem since. Guess these trucks dont like weak batteries. You might check that out. His truck had been driving fine for a week, then fine that day. He stopped somewhere for a half hour and the battery quit on em i guess.

Edited: just read the part about yours turning over normally. So battery is probably outta the question. Suppose I'd start with fuel delivery in your case.

 

ok not the coil, so now I guess I just start checking for spark on the wires correct. this much I can do but how difficult is it to go any further and mess with the cap. timing doesn't matter on this system does it?

 

Don't move the distributor, and make sure you keep the wires on in the right order.

Do you hear the fuel pump prime when you first turn the key to on?

 

Yes fuel pump primes but there is no spark. I am gonna swap out the crank shaft sensor first and then if that doesn't work guess next logical step is the distributor itself.

 

Just the cam sensor. Don't yank the dist.