Well, today while I was at the doctors office, my CPS (crankshaft position sensor) died.

I went to the doctor and my wife and kids were waiting in the van with the AC on. After about 10 minutes, my wife comes in and says the van just died and the AC shut itself off. I am thinking what?!?!? OK lets go out and see what is up.
I get into the van and try to start it up. The dash lit up, the radio worked but all it did was turn over and over and over. I turn off the van, and now I am thinking the worse - the PCM died. So, praying, I do the keydance and find code p0320. I look it up and sure enough, p0320 is no signal from the CPS.
At the doctors office I am at, I know there is a NAPA just down the street. I call to see if they have a CPS and they do - for $49 bucks - grrrrrrrr. There is nothing I can do, so I send my wife down to pick it up. I take the kids into the doctor with me and my wife get the CPS.
After the appointment, I took the doghouse off with a screwdriver I had borrowed and then took the CPS out with a small Vise-Grip pliers I had in the van. I installed the new one, turned the key and the van started right up.
I did have some very minor things that I should have put 2 and 2 together and though that there was something going on.
Here are the symptoms I experienced before my CPS died.
1. A hard, single miss at a stop light. I would happen only once usually and it was mostly when I was idling at a stop light. I would only do this once or twice during a whole hour of driving. So I discounted it.
2. (this one was really bugging me, but I really couldn't put my finger on it) My torque convertor would unlock at around 40MPH for no reason. It started doing it at first, once right as I hit 40MPH for the first time and then it wouldn't do it anymore that day. I noticed today that it did it 4-5 times in the first 10 minutes of driving. I was really concerned about this, but as I know now, it was attributed to the CPS.
3. Hard starting. For the last week, it took 2-3 seconds longer to start up. Normally, my van would crank over is a half a second. For the last week or two some of the starts took 3-4 seconds.

I was blessed it was just the CPS and I had tools, and a parts store near. Only took me about 30 minutes. Not too bad


And also a special thanks to Stout Pawn & Jewelry for loaning me a screwdriver.

 

Congrats.
You get a Gold Star.
8-)

 

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I remember when I first got the van, I knew of the issues with Dodge's CPS (and also aftermarket Chinese crap)so I changed it when I first got the van. ( I have seen my two friends go through 3 of them in the past few years) There were not any spacers in there on the original. Do you remember what spacers you had? Maybe I can replicate it, but I remember the one I put in originally two years ago was a cheap Chinese POS

 

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I'm curious about this just in case I ever run into this issue: Can you explain where exactly the CPS was located, or maybe provide some pictures of where it is and what it looks like? I have a 1998 with the 5.2L, but I'd imagine it's the same exact part.

 

When you take the dog house off, look at the distributor. Then from there look at the 4-oclock position, about 6-8 inches in that direction. It has two bolts with a C-shaped bracket. It is located on the bell housing of the transmission.

You cant miss it...

this video, even though for a Dakota, shows exactly the same place where it is in our vans..