1996 Dodge Ram 3500 Van Dies Suddenly While Driving; Won't Crank Back Immediately.
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Still have gotten nowhere. I replaced the relays and it still died, without warning right in the middle of the road. It was a two lane country road so I stopped and checked and had 12V to my relay locations.
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Joined: Sep 2018
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I hope I'm in the right category here. I really need some help from guys who know what they are talking about. 1996 Dodge Ram 3500. 318 (5.9L) engine with 90k miles. Brand new fuel pump few months back. Replaced IACV due to improper idle/crank issue. So you will just be driving down the road and about 10 minutes into your trip every time the van will just die without warning. feels like the fuel pump just completely stops pumping. Weird part is that it will not crank immediately after it dies, you have no choice but to sit there for 10 minutes or so, and then it will start back like there was never a problem. Other weird part is that after it does this one time it will not do it again for the rest of your trip on that day, even if you drive it several hours. it happened to me today and I switched the fuel pump relay with the auto shutdown relay and it fired back up but I don't know if that was coincidence as I had already been sitting about 8 minutes. What is the purpose of the auto shutdown relay anyway? I have also replaced the coolant temperature sensor to make sure the PCM was not shutting down due to faulty information. I would think that if it were the fuel pump relay overheating then it would do it multiple times per day. I'd like to speak with someone who has dealt with this problem before, I'm not really looking for guesses. Also has a brand new battery. Let me know if you need additional information. Thanks guys.
with the help of dodge forum site i figured this out.
Found the problem and fixed it! i actually slept like a king last night haha.
So! it was the red wire on the ignition (found on the bottom part of steering wheel once covers are taken off)
it leads from ignition through a felt wrapped casing, inside of a taped up cluster going from the bottom of the steering wheel towards the upper left part of the brake pedal.
which is plugged into a cluster plug about the size of the palm of your hand, that leads you through the firewall. which leads to more taped up clusters.
so the power wire to ignition actually sits in the cluster that is placed further behind the brake booster. ( there are 2 clusters placed snug on top of brake booster)
although all fusible links were exposed, i couldn't see the wires true color due to some fading and dirt. so once inside of the cluster i found the ignition power, which led to a fusible link, and on the opposite end of the link there were both an orange wire and white wire. The Break was found in the orange wire. surprisingly the Break wasn't at the tip, but it was actually 4 inches away going into the next link! not even sure how i'm going to put a shrink tube around it. but yea. that's how i solved my issue. i seen a lot of these issues going on, on the website here. so i wrote a more detailed explanation of my Problem plus solving, hopefully to save someone else from a disastrous headache.
Also when figuring out how these fusible links work, know that your break in power does not always happen at the tip, you must find good strong wire to connect new fusible link wire to. then properly solder it all together, then shrink wrap for best connection.
Your wire may have a break started, then is slightly reconnecting with the change of temps. mine did that for a while but would always fire back up or give me stalling issues. changed the wire. no more issues. hope this helps.
