OK, my CE light comes on and goes out at various times. This morning, I drove the truck to work 35 miles via I40. Right outside the gates, the CE light comes on and then flashes and stays lit. During my lunch hour, I drove the truck about 15 miles to a tire store to get a tire patched, and the light did the same blinking to me, and again on the way home. When I got home tonight, I pulled the codes via cycling the ignition switch; however, I performed two separate tests which yielded two sets of results.

Test #1) 34, 24, 24, 22, 42 = Speed Control, TPS, TPS, Coolant (too hot or cold), ASD relay

Test #2) 12, 43, 43, 43, 21, 43 = Battery Disconnected Recently (it hasn't been), Coil, Coil, Coil, O2 Sensor, Coil

I believe it could be an O2 sensor, because when I am climbing small grades (no hills here in central Oklahoma), and I mash the throttle, the truck bogs down and won't downshift to kick it up. If I am coasting down a grade and mash the throttle, then it downshifts but still runs sluggish. I am also wondering, with 114,000 miles on the odometer, if the catalytic converter is plugging up. I do know that the O2 sensor will clog due to bad rings, valves, etc. but it appears this truck was well maintained when I bought it. If you check my earlier posts, I have performed maintenance to the coolant system, crankcase, and trans.

Any suggestions are welcome. It looks like I will be performing some extensive troubleshooting this weekend on some sensors and relays.

 

I don't think the oxygen sensor is causing your problems regarding the uphill acceleration. The oxygen sensor input is ignored during open loop operation (WOT, Acceleration, Deceleration, Warm-up). The only time inputs from the oxygen sensor are used are during closed loop operation (idle and cruise). That's for the pre-cat oxygen sensor. If your truck has a post cat sensor, that's a different story.

The converter could be clogged due to age. 114,000 is quite a few miles on a stock converter. The ones on the Rams were notorious for plugging....especially the dual setup that the V10s had.

As far as the battery being disconnected, IIRC it takes 255 starts to erase that code.

 

OK, that makes some sense. I am thinking with all of the work under the hood of late that some sensors may have been bumped. The CE light is intermittent, and like I stated, I will be driving and it will blink before staying continuously lit, then it will blink again for a while.

 

I also have a problem with my ce light. About a month ago i installed a k&n cold air intake on my 01 5.9 ram. The installation included a new reconfigured evap bracket to position them differently so that the filter would fit i guess. Anyways the light stays on. When the ce light first came on I knew that it probably had to do with the new intake. The light came on 2 weeks after I put on the K&N cai. I had it hooked up and ran diagnostics and sure enough it was the evap. I don't really know what I did to the evap canisters...I didn't unhook them. They turned the ce light off for me but of course its back on now. Anybody have any suggestions on how to fix the problem myself?

 

Heres a fresh thought on that. The engine light will blink if one of the cylinders is misfiring due to bad plugs, especially when accelerating. This happened to me but I knew it was in bad need of a tune up. It also blinked at me before I could tell the engine was misfireing. Just a thought.

 

OK, the information everyone has provided so far has been of great assistance. Tonight I replaced the plus with Champion RC12YC plus and gapped them to the proper 0.40 (two of the old plugs I found to be gapped at 0.35). The cap and rotor were the originals, and the contacts on both were extremely worn. The plug wires were the originals and were a great help in installing the new plug wires on the new cap. The truck fired up right away, but that rattle at idle is getting more pronounced. I drove 12 miles to town and romped on the throttle a few times. During those times acceleration was better, but not where it should be. The CE light would blink in sequence, so on the way back I would count the number of times it blinked. There was no set pattern as it blinked 25 times, then 28 times, then 15, and then 10.

One item that bothered me is that #3 was not an original Champion plug, but was an Autolite. It looked slightly fouled too. There appears to be oil residue on the passenger side of the engine (the even bank), which makes me suspect that I need to perform the top-end overhaul. I need to disconnect the battery to clear the codes, but I think I'm on to something. I tested the codes, while stopping for gas, and it blinked a '43' several times, which again is the coil. I didn't catch the other code.

Tomorrow I am driving from OKC to Tulsa for a car show. I was originally supposed to tow a trailer with a car, but I would rather not drive 200+ miles, round trip, with my truck running like this. Any more ideas/suggestions are welcome.

 

Thank God for the Internet. Here's a great link that I found today regarding rough running for the 1500's. This guy did almost everything to his truck that I did, from the start. Mine was running funny after I had changed the t-stat.

http://autorepair.about.com/library/faqs/bl654h.htm

I discovered, much to my dismay this weekend, that I had run the coil wire with too much slack, which resulted in it lying on the exhaust manifold. Once the insulation melted, and the wire made contact, I was in for a bucking, herkey jerk ride. The truck died right then and there. Thankfully, I suspected the problem, and rerouted the wire. I am glad it didn't burn through or else I wouldn't have made it home. The article references the TSB for rerouting the wires.