An ex-friend borrowed my 1999 Ram 1500, 5.9 Liter 8 cyl 4x4 quad cab truck and brought it back covered in Alabama Red Clay-Dirt inside and outside, underneath and in parts of the engine block. I cleaned it as best possible and began driving the truck off and on for about 6 weeks without any evidence of a problem. Finally I let it sit for about 4 days having no need to go anywhere.

My broken beverage holder and glove box sat in the back seat (Yeah, he broke them) and unknown to me the low voltage light for a (closed) glove box remained on for probably weeks, which completely drained the battery.


Jumping didn't work so I charged it overnight. Once charged she starts right up but won't stay running. I have to continuously feather-tap the accelerator to keep the engine from cutting off.

What could have happened as a result of the battery being completely discharged or can this be just a random freak coincidence that something else broke down at the same time?

 

Clean your IAC and throttle body. Don't mess with the pintle on the IAC while cleaning it or you'll screw it up and have to replace it.
Before doing that, reset the PCM by disconnecting the neg. cable from the batt., turn the key on and headlights for a little bit to drain the capacitors if you didn't disconnect the battery to recharge it. If that doesn't help, then clean the IAC and throttle body, with the battery disconnected first.

 

+2 on the IAC. had my moms pt cruiser do the same thing would fire right off and wouldnt stay runnin. IAC was horrible.

 

weak and/or dead battery messes up the idle control reference signals of the tps and iac.

don't touch anything. just charge the battery back up, maybe reset PCM. it'll fix itself when the battery is fully charged at or above 12 volts.

 

+ 1 on this make sure the battery is completely charged and it should fix itself.
Feather the throttle to keep it running and eventually it will run on its own.

Dave

 

LOL @ "an ex-friend"...but yea what an ***. Anyways, my bet would be that your battery is toast. Its really not good for them to be drained totally down like that and then jumped...seems to kill them. And for whatever reason, the computer on 2nd gen rams FREAKS out if the battery is even slightly weak. if cleaning the IAC doesnt work, bring the battery up to a parts store to be tested.