Hey everyone, I am hoping one of you super intelligent guys can help out a back yard mechanic guy... lol I will give a (hopefully) quick back summary to how I got here. Truck I am discussing is a 2006 Ram 1500 4.7 211K (and running strong, or was) lol
Back story:
Living in NH this adventure started with the need to replace a rusted through oil pan. The truck was a daily driver until a year ago when oil pan holes got to bad and had to park it so it sat through this winter not used. (to me important note here) A month ago, decided to do the oil pan, battery was dead. Jump started the truck, no problem so I could move the vehicle to a spot in the yard where I could work on it. Shut it off no problem, truck ran very good even after sitting.
Fast forward to current date.
Oil pan is installed, (did not start after completion) Thanks to this great forum no motor pull!!!!
Decided to also replace heater core while here because of no heat condition in winter. This is complete and new evaporator core also while I had dash out. AGAIN thanks to the forum no problem
Here is where it gets crazy for me anyway
All mechanical work complete now, ready for test start / check out. Truck starts for 2 seconds and shuts off. has not run since.
After many hours of testing and scouring your forums and you tube I have tested all the normal things and eliminated them one by one and the truck still wont run.
I have crank, I have spark (verified with tester) I have fuel Pressure (not ideal but 45 psi at rail, To me should not be the problem I drove the truck where it is) and no check engine light
I did have some codes to clear normal stuff battery disconnected etc from the work, but I have none now and I can't get it to start.
Because of this I purchased a Launch 129 CRP129X scanner to help in diagnosing my no start condition. (Codes previously mentioned were seen, read and cleared with this scanner) The only anomaly I can see right now is my injector pulse width is, from what I am understanding, is about 3X's higher than it should be when trying to start.
What I have read, is typical IPW should be about 20msish (do not know exact Dodge spec) mine are running at 59ms+ and according to the graphing feature, they all seem to be firing/pulsing all at once. I have attached a picture below of 1-4. 5-8 similar. Other sensors are within spec (from what I can tell) yesterday I did replace crank and cam sensors no change, again it ran before, but has 211K so just in case I changed them.
From what I can gather so far it looks like maybe a bad PCM? I don't know, I do not want to keep throwing big parts at the truck until it's fixed. Could it be a shorted injector harness wire or something? I am at a complete loss here. I can usually figure things out given time, but this is beyond me.... Any ideas? there are two fundamental tests I have not done yet but will 1. try to run with starting fluid (not a fan of that but) 2. pull spark plugs after attempt to start to see if flooded. (ps, plugs were replaced last year before parking)
Sorry for the long post, but i think I have covered almost everything and just hit a wall here, so hoping someone has experienced this and solved it.

Current Readings when starting.

 

I have one of the launch crp scanners, i wouldnt trust any fuel related numbers it reports. Mine says fuel trims are over 1k percent which is not true at all. If your getting spark then i would suspect fuel is your issue. Possibly disconnect the fuel connection at the rail, flush out the old fuel. Maybe try the starting fuel you mentioned.

 

3rdgen, Thanks for the advice. Can't say I completely trust the CRP scanner yet, but it is the tool I currently have in my arsenal to try to figure this out. On that note, I just got back to working on this yesterday and this thing is baffling. Because of sitting round most of the winter, the battery wasn't the best, so I put it on charge over the week to get it up to par. According to the charger it never came to full charge about 80%. I am thinking it is time for a battery for sure.
So today while working on it with the scanner connected, I saw basically the same results as before after attempting to start it a few times I pulled a plug to find it bone dry. I wanted to record some data to look at so I reinstalled the plug, had to put battery charger on boost by now. While turning it over and recording, (out of frustration) I stepped on the accelerator and floored it. Strangely the truck tried to start you could hear what sounded like a few of the cylinders firing. It picked up RPMS and as it did, my injector pulse rate came down into spec. But she never started. If the motor was an older motor I would say it sounded like the distributor was in wrong or 180 out. This time when I pulled the same plug it was soaked with gas. This really has me scratching my head.
I am going to start with a new battery and see if that does the trick, seems like the faster it turned over the closer it was to catching and it does seem to be turning over slower than usual. Perhaps something went wrong with the ECM when i moved it to take out the heater box assembly though I cannot see anything like bad wires etc. I am trying hard not to go that route, I have read many posts where people went that route and it was something else, these don't come cheap.

Any ideas? Not getting much for replies. This is really baffling no start no codes especially when I drove it to the spot it is currently in.....

 

A weak battery will cause some truly odd and strange electrical issues. Put a new on in there, and see what changes.

How is your fuel pressure? Do you have noid lights? Might check injectors are pulsing properly.

 

Heyyou, yeah fuel pressure was ok not exactly up to snuff 48 psi. I suspect it would be ok as i did move the vehicle to where it is before the work started. Am going to try a new battery for sure.

I have another question though : Does anyone know what this reading on the scan tool may be? the line is "NGC ok to run" and it's value is False
I have tried to find out what this means googling it but no luck.

 

Well this is disheartening, I replaced the battery as I said, and once again it kinda would start but just didn't sound right. I went back to my gut feeling it had something to do with timing (mechanical) So I got out the Service manual set it up for TDC. But when I was cranking it over by hand I hear something catch then release, and I knew something was up. I released the new cam shaft and crank sensor I had installed just in case I got a bad one. Nope wasn't it. So verified my right bank (passenger side) timing and it was perfect. I had had the valve cover off a few times so started there. 4 hours later (getting the left valve cover off) I noted the timing indicator on that side was aprox 90 degrees off/ behind the other timing mark. (see Pic) Yup it had jumped timing.




Then upon further investigation I noticed my chain guide for that side was no where visible. Big sag in the bottom of the chain. The tensioner on top was in place. Now for me this makes sense. When I originally removed the old oil pan I found a piece of whiteish plastic in the bottom of the pan. I was curious about what it was but saw no indicator where it came from. Now I know, I am assuming my chain guide broke then was slowly chewed up and made it's way into the oil pan. I hear these are interference motors, what are the chances I did not damage any valves being 90 degree behind? I really would not have a problem doing a top end if needed, but because I am in New England every bolt is ready to snap or corroded so bad nearly impossible to get off.... That's why it took me 4 hours on the valve cover, bolts were rusted so bad some had to removed with a 9mm instead of 10mm...
Anyway, is there a Non-compression test I could do to check for bent valves? No valve springs look out of place or broke as it currently sits but that doesn't mean a valve isn't slightly bent... Again not trying to be cheap, just bolts are so bad......