Hey all - 850 miles into my 2-day time restricted 1400-mile drive

Refueled at a truck stop with regular unleaded in my 1997 Ram 1500 4x4. I sit in the parking lot for about 10 minutes in park with the car running and start eating. I back up to a trash can to throw away my trash, then shift to drive, and it instantly stalls and dies. I turn on the truck, it runs fine in park, then shift to drive and it dies again. Manage to shift it to drive and give it some gas and move forward. Had no problems for the next 200 miles... car drove fine. Now whenever I get to a stop sign or a red light, I have to two-foot it and keep the rpms up, otherwise it'll have low rpms and stall on me. Got to the hotel, put it in drive with the parking brake on (did not get the problems in park, rpm's were stable in park and reverse, but not in drive or first). The car was wanting to jump at low rpms... but it did not die while parked there. It wanted to jerk a little bit and I could hear a rattle/pop sound in the engine compartment, but I could not pinpoint the location.

 

Dirty or defective IAC on the back of the throttle body. Give it a carb cleaner bath.

 

tms bill always gets here b4 me, but i had the same problem...i kinda liked it, sounded like mine was cammed, anyways..thats what i did and it worked fine after that

 

Sorry, Bro ... thanks for the backing though. [8D]

My dream is to be NOMINATED for Truck of the Month ... just once.

 

I think that's the issue.. Although, the problems started with some suspect fuel I received at the Pilot station, and problems have diminished since I refueled the tank with higher octane... I dumped some Chemtool B12 into the tank and will have to wait to give the IAC a bath whenever I get to my destination... I'll just have to be wary of idling during traffic jams

Could the fuel even be the issue here in y'alls opinions?

 

It sounds strange, but you might check your batter. I had a similar problem wiht my 02 liberty, when I took it to the mechanic, he told me all I needed was a new battery. Apparently when the battery gets weak, the vehicles computer doesn't work properly, and sense false signals.

 

You know - I actually read that.. the battery is too weak and doesn't supply enough power for the computer to operate correctly. I'll check into it as another scenario, but it was replaced recently - so let's hope not.

 

Doubtful ... premium and mid-grade have higher octane ratings ... that means they burn a bit slower than the lower octane (higher heptane content) regular. Contrary to what many believe ... "premium" does NOT equate to "higher quality" in the gasoline world. The B12 is probably helping a bit but you'd have to use quite a high concentration to really clean up the TB and IAC.

 

Even if the fuel I received had a water percentage or ethanol? Forgive my ignorance

 

Water doesn't mix with petroleum unless sufficient alcohol is present (alcohol mixes with both) at which point it becomes a non-issue as the mixture is perfectly burnable (ever heard of Gas-Dri?) . Gasoline floats on water so the chances of you picking up "some" water with "some" gas is pretty remote. The water would sit in the bottom of the station's tanks. 10% ethanol is pretty much the standard in pump gas these days (yes ... even premium) so you've probably been burning it anyway since at least last summer.