Okay, continuation from my other thread about alternator replacement. To recap; My truck (2005 Dakota 4.7L standard engine, 545RFE trans, 4x4 with Tow Package) will intermittently lose electrical power, the dash lights flash off and on, including gear indicator and odometer, as well as the stereo. It will surge a bit (I'm assuming because the injectors are also being affected by this loss of power) I though maybe bad alternator, replaced it and had the exact same issue, was able to get my old one and money back from autozone. put old one back in, and kicked it over, idled fine, volts measured at battery while running at staying in 14.4-8v measured by my cheap voltmeter, same when measured from alt to ground, and the OBD volt reading from my scan tool measures the same. SO I drove it for a couple days with no issue, until today it came back, but then stopped and ran fine as I was driving. I Don't want to keep driving it like this in case it does die like on the high way or something. It is not throwing any codes, the service 4wd light was kicking on randomly before this started. I can do some basic troulbe shooting and investigating but I dont have a lift or any sophisticated equipment (my scan tool is a Bluetooth one from amazon, I use Torque Pro to interface with it.) Any idea would be greatly appreciated.

 

Biggest source of electrical gremlins is a bad battery. Next thing to check would be connectors to the pcm. I recall the gear shift selector disappeared and some other things happened when I took those off and put one back on poorly.

 

I can get the battery tested but Its only about 1.5 years old, but it is a Walmart special so you never know. I'll clean the posts and grounds tomarrow. cant hurt. I'm leaning towards the PCM I've had issues with it and a coil pack in the past (ended up be a bad wire causing it to blow) I wonder if any company make a replacement harness connector? I'd be more than willing to snip the old ones off and and/or re-pin them if a kit exists.