I've got a 97 Ram 1500 5.9 and it seems to not like the cold weather. Christmas evening it got down into the 20s and it wouldn't start up. The engine turns over fine (brand new battery) but there is no spark at the coil. The crankshaft position sensor is about a month old, and, I also replaced the coil while troubleshooting that night. Nothing at all would give me a spark.

I had the truck towed home and parked it. Didn't touch it yesterday, but gave her a try this morning... while the temp was in the 20s. Still wouldn't start. However, I just walked outside and tried it for the heck of it and it fired up... with the temperature near the 50s.

One last thing- even though it started up, it didn't want to run at first and did a lot of spitting, sputtering and backfiring for a minute or two and then it leveled out and ran fine. I didn't check the codes this time, but the other day (on a pretty cold morning) when it did this it gave me P1391 & P0320.

All of the following have been replaced within the last year, in which it ran about 3500 miles-
Both O2 sensors
Crankshaft Position Sensor
Distributor Cap & Rotor
Cat Converter
Coil
Plugs & Wires

Probably some other stuff that I didn't think of as well...

Any ideas? I don't know where to start on this one...

 

Might not have been the problem,water in the fuel does that as well and iced in the line causing blockage.Just a thought........

 

Thanks for the response Cruzer.

That seems possible, but could the iced lines somehow cause there to be no spark?

 

If it's not to cold out,check all connections could be just a simple thing like loose .Cold wet conditions seems to attract gremlins,if it was performing well in warm weather ,then cold hits causing problems, thats where to start.Just a thought........

 

My first thought is bad Crank sensor or bad Coil. I would test them. However I don't know how to do that. Zman17 would, but he doesn't post around here anymore because he got tired of all the BS...

 

Thanks guys. At this point I'm leaning towards the crank sensor (even though it's new) and I think I'll replace it first. I did check all of the connections as far as I could see & reach and everything seemed to be ok. I hate issues like this that are difficult to troubleshoot.... bring on the easy stuff!