I have a 1999 Ram with 5.9 V8 that had been sitting for 10yrs until I got it running again a few days ago. I replaced the ignition coil, plug wires, distributor cap, rotor, cam positioner plate under distributor cap, spliced wires to idle air control valve, spliced wires to crank shaft position sensor, spliced wires to oil pressure sending unit. I did all this because rodents had got in the engine bay an chewed most of that stuff up. I got it running a few days ago when I finally found the crank shaft position sensor wires chewed apart. It ran pretty good for about 3 days during those 3 days I had to drop the gas tank to change out a rear brake line. While I had the tank down I cleaned it and changed the fuel pump out just because. The truck ran fine after I got all that back together. I drove it probably 20 miles off and on throughout the day testing everything. Went to my garage probably 20 hours later the battery was weak so I charged it. Tried starting it and it cranks but will not run. I have tested spark all the way to the plugs, I have tried to start it just on starter fluid and nothing. I have a fuel pressure gauge but have not tested yet just testing other things. Before when it would not start it would crank also but was not creating a spark at the ignition coil, this time it is creating spark all the way to the plugs. Thanks for any help.

 

If it won't even fire on starting fluid, I would question whether you are actually getting spark or not.... It really doesn't take much to light that stuff off......

 

Yeah I just used one of those in line testers and I got it to light up coming off the ignition coil then pulled a wire off a plug and put it in line with the #2 cylinder and it lit up there also. It would make more sense if it was not getting spark. just don't know why it all of the sudden wouldn't start.

 

Did you spray the stuff directly into the throttle body? (air filter housing off.....)

 

yes I did. I didn't have someone to help and spray while I was cracking it but figured just spraying in there would do the trick.

 

I'm at work trying to think through every thing that could be the problem and like I said in the original post, I had to splice wires back together on the idle air control valve and I tried to clean that mess up by wrapping in electrical tape. I cant remember if I did that before or after I the last time it was running or if I did all that the night before all this started. If I knocked one of those connections loose and that idle air control valve was not working correctly would it cause this problem?

 

Might wanna revisit some of your splices, see if something came apart, or something shorted that you missed earlier.....

 

Spark on an inline tester does not guarantee the spark plug is sparking, you could be shorting to ground in the plug, plugs fire differently under compression also. You could have weak discharge from the coil, yea i makes a spark but it wont spark under compression. It would seem strange all 8 plugs would be that bad, but just a theory.

 

Electrical tape won't last to long in a hot engine compartment. Use heat shrink tubing. You might want to remove one of the plugs and see what it looks like(wet from gas). If it's dry you can check spark that way.

 

How many miles on the engine? Why was it parked? Pull the distributor cap off and then rotate the crank backwards and see how far it rotates before the rotor in the cap moves. If it's way off time, it might have jumped just enough to not start.