First of all, a sincere thanks to anyone that came here to possibly help me. I really do appreciate your time.

This will most likely be a long post. Sorry for that.

I own a 1998 Dodge Dakota 2 x 4 Sport Reg Cab with a Manual V6 Magnum. My truck has 138K miles on it and I've owned it since the year 2000. 2nd owner starting at 29k miles.
Last summer my truck started to just randomly die ( in traffic ) on me but would quickly start up again. This started in May of 2017. And it would only happen once or twice every week or two. As the weeks and summer progressed it started to happen a lot more often. In Aug and Sept my truck become unreliable and I stopped driving it and instead relying on my GF's car. She's a sweetie!

I've been disabled for about 16 years so money is tight. Over the last 9 months until the present time I've slowly been using any extra I had to get mobile mechanics off Craigslist to my house to work on my truck. Before anyone expresses concern, I did do my due diligence and find ASC certified mechanics before scheduling my appointments.

The work I've done on my own or with the help of the mobile mechanic is as follows. IAC sensor, Coil. New Rotor and Cap, Wires and Spark Plugs. Lastly, the most pricey repair, the Fuel Pump. I've had the truck diagnosed. All sensors were checked and came back as good. New wires checked for spark. Etc etc. to this day even after the $$$ I've dropped into my truck it is still not reliable.

The current behavior of the truck is as follows. Some days it starts right up, other days it won't. If I do get it started I can drive it away from my home but at the risk of it dying and me being stuck on the side of the road or a parking lot if I'm lucky to be near when it does die. What is reliable about my truck is that it will now start but only after 2 or 3 or 5 minutes or turning it over and or me trying to turn it over for an extended period of time, say 5 to 10 seconds to the point the battery is about to give out. The most concerning issue I have now is my truck has a lot less power now on the highway and especially going up hills. I'm guessing I've lost maybe 20% of the power I used to have. It doesn't struggle with acceleration, just, the power and speed I used to have it no longer there. On hills the power seems smooth but the engine sounds different, kind of a high wind with again, a lot less power. One last symptom I almost forgot to mention is that I will hear the occasional backfire when I drive.

My neighbor across the street is a good guy and has tried to help me here and there. He is a 35 year veteran Aircraft mechanic and works for FedEx out of KCI here in Kansas City. We downloaded the schematics and he has gone over the wiring as best we could. His next suggestion is my Ignition. My key will come out if I pull on the key and the engine will remain running. He thinks that could be the problem. Another problem I've been told my the ASC Mechanic is that I could have a bad 'NEW' Fuel Pump. We've not yet tested the fuel pressure but when my truck is running ... it runs fine. When I turn on the ignition, you can hear the fuel pump turn on. And as I mentioned I've had days, tho, not many where it runs no problem for a few two to three hours as I run errands.

I would appreciate any expert advice. Sadly, I do not have the money to put the truck in the shop. I'm a life time Mopar head and am hoping this community can help me.

Thanks, Tom Kansas City

 

Welcome to the site Tom,
Sounds like your in a pickle.. Intermittent issues can be very labor costly. No way around it. Sounds like you need to find a guy that knows Chrysler well and has some tooling. Like a DBR factory scantool and also a Launch recorder to hunt for the issues. However. It might be worth a look at Identifix to help you figure things out. Also make sure the charging system and all the grounds are good in the truck.
This might be a little after the fact.... But do you get any stored trouble codes?

Keep us posted..

 

Welcome from northern Iowa, I'm 5.5 hrs. north of you.
I have to agree with Bob you're going to need someone who knows Mopar work on your truck. You have a fuel, valve or ignition timing or perhaps exhaust restriction issue, issue's that need diagnosis.
As you have seen repairing the wrong thing gets expensive.

 

I would try testing or replacing the fuel pump with a Bosch fuel pump and make sure you change the fuel filter as well.

 

My thought on the fuel pump issue..... Put a gauge on it and test it. Leave it on and observe to see if it is failing of not when the problem happens. I would also have a scan tool hooked up to see and capture the point when it stalled too see if the relay dropped out and turned the pump off. So it might be a power supply problem or it could be a faulty fuel pump or 2. Or just a power supply problem.
Not that it doesn't happen. But it's highly unlikely to have 2 fuel pumps in a row fail....

Just my 2 cents... Just food for thought....
Good Points Y'all !!!

 

My suspicion would be electrical. does your air cond work ?? Maybe a common electric splice connection in the harness had a similar problem with a 1998 Dodge van 3.9 auto. Was dealing with a similar problem and had a re acoring ign code P0138? and an intermittent air cond last time it quit :-( It backfired and blew the converter ?? Couldn't get it started after that. Further checking I found it only had 70 psi compression. Do to the condition of the van (paint,windshield, rust air cond vents, and engine) I chose to just sell it as is SO I would stop throwing parts at it and check the wiring grounds and any wiring splices in the harness that are common to the two systems

 

Thanks to everyone for chiming in and offering your help and suggestions. I really do appreciate it. I take none of your time for granted.

We did check the relays and in fact swapped them out. No issues there. I think there is another fuel module thing that is accessible under the passenger side wheel under the plastic wheel lining on the right side of the engine that could also be a problem but having a hard time finding that video again on YouTube. I've read that that could also be a problem. It's a fuel something or other.

I would really hate for it to be the electrical. That sounds absolutely expensive.

I found that scan tools are extremely cheap on eBay. $12 to $15 dollars and will go ahead and pick one up and take the advice of leaving it plugged in to capture codes. I think that might be a great idea.

As mentioned, money is tight. Coming to the forums was a last ditch hail-mary for me. I really do feel like I am out of options here. 9.5 times out of 10 you can get your problem fixed the first time. This is literally the first time in my life that I cannot fix a problem. The solution is eluding me and costing me money I don't have along the way.

I'm not complaining here as I'm more than happy to have addressed these issues, but I've had to spend $1,500 dollars since this problem started and to this day 13 or 14 months later still cannot drive my truck reliably. So back when all of this started, I call the guy out and before we do anything he tells me that driving the truck is very dangerous as the upper / lower ball joints on both sides are in terrible shape. I had wondered why my front end was rattling really bad. So I had to spend $425 on that before we did anything else. Then we did a tune-up with rotor, cap, wires and spark plugs, new LED lights, IAC, coil, oil change, filter, air filter, Then the brakes went out so we had to replace everything down there, wheel hub assembly, calipers, lines and brake pads and then the fuel pump. Dodge Dakota's don't have inline fuel filters. The fuel filter is inside the fuel pump assembly and then the diagnostics here and there. Plus I've been buying a fair amount of Seafoam and Lucas to treat the fuel and oil.

I'm a bit fatigued and worn down from all of this so all the advice really does help me. Thanks again. You guys are awesome.

Tom - Kansas City

 

You could look into the ignition switch.... Do you keep a lot of keys attached to your key ring? That can damage the ignition switch? If that the case you should be able to more than likely re-simulate or duplicate the problem.

 

I do have a fair amount of keys on my key-ring but not enough ( one would think ) to cause an issue. I have a key fob for my GF's Chrysler 300, 2 house keys, one the dead-bolt. My Dakota key, a few tiny key-rings all connected to a lanyard.

Ironically enough, my GF's 300 was recalled for this very issue. You could be driving down the high-way and if you had a lot of crap on your key-ring it would disengage the ignition and kill the engine. I heard this issue caused some fatalities as people would lose control of their car being unable to turn the wheel fast enough to avoid hitting something. This actually happened to me in her car several times but I do not rattle easy. Just turn the key over, start the engine, continue driving.

The guy across the street that I mentioned is suggesting this could be the problem as well. I'm actually in the process of trying to source a new ignition now as it does need replaced and seems affordable. As I said I can take out my key while driving and the truck will remain running. I cannot remember if my wheel locks or not. I think it did but no longer does. But, cannot remember. Either way seems dangerous and probably wouldn't take much to steal my truck. So I'm going to do this next.

 

OK.. The key cylinder is separate from the Ign. Switch itself. Just an FYI...
If the Truck comes up with a P0320, P0351 Or a P1391, Code
Replace the Crankshaft Position Sensor. And if that don't fix it. I think your looking at a PCM Issue that will need replacing.
I know you said you guys checked all the sensors, But I'm thinking that might be the one dropping out and is most replaced or found at fault. As far as I am aware of...
Hope this helps to some extent...
Keep us posted....

 

Update:

We were finally able to catch the truck to where it absolutely wouldn't start. Before now it was hit or miss. Anytime my neighbor came over to have a look and help diagnose the issue the truck would start which didn't help me at all ( go figure.) So I gave him a call and he was able to come over and we gave the truck the ol' ether test and when the truck wouldn't turn over he was able to trace the starting issue back to the ignition switch after checking down a mental list he said. Now, I'm sure some of you might have known about this trick but I didn't. He came over and using an under hand motion with his first banged on the bottom of the steering wheel housing and the truck started right up.

Also, and he isn't 100% sure but he said the loss in power can be explained by the battery power to ignition and the commands / signals not making the proper loop and or not having the proper amount of voltage to cause the engine to not have full engine power ??? if I've explained it right in the way he was trying to explain it to me. He said this is also why the truck would just randomly die on me as I was driving around. The ignition switch / wiring / ground that we banged around to get the truck to turn over would malfunction killing the engine. So, something like that. I feel like an idiot. My key comes out without any force whatsoever and the truck will continue to run. Something has been amiss for awhile. This is probably something I should have looked at right first and not last.

I checked prices on eBay and the key cylinder with 2 keys is around $35 on average and the ignition switch is around $35 on average as well. He said the issue could possibly be even simpler than that but wouldn't know until we removed the top and bottom housing. With those parts being so cheap I am just going to replace them and pray that whatever we do fixes it. I will say this. After banging around on the bottom housing area of the steering column the truck did in fact regain all it's engine power. With the new oil change, air filter, premium oil filter, cap and rotor, new spark plugs and wires, it runs very strong and smoothly.

Has anyone else heard of this problem and if so, any advice you might want to add before I order parts and we open up the column?

Thanks again, Tom

 

That would explain why no code had been set....

 

The cylinder and ignition switch are 2 separate parts I believe. The cylinder just accepts the key to allow the cylinder to turn and operate the ignition switch. If you are having an electrical issue the switch needs replaced not the cylinder. My truck allows the keys to be removed when started, always has. Glad to hear you caught the problem at the right time to track it down.

 

As I've mentioned a few times, my key will come out even if the truck is running. But you're saying the cylinder doesn't need replaced? Oppps .... too late. I thought this part was worn out and figured it should be replaced. I ordered the parts maybe an hour or so ago. I watched the videos. Looks like the cylinder slides right out easily if you depress a seated button on the outer bottom of the cylinder. My repair guy says he would charge me $75 dollars to replace these 2 parts and check the wiring. Or my friend from across the street said he could help me.

parts were cheap. Here is what I ordered.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dodge-Dakot...72.m2749.l2649
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ignition-St...72.m2749.l2649

I will have both parts on the 7th and 8th and will update you guys shortly. This has been a long time in coming and am excited to just have the truck start when I need it to.

My Dakota has been rock solid stable for many many many years. Even with all the issues I'm having I still love her.

 

I hope that fixes it for you. It jogs my memory I could have had a bad switch on my van as my van was stolen one time about 1-2 years ago, they could have damaged the switch...

 

Update #3

Well, about 3 weeks ago I got the Ignition Switch changed out. Didn't do any good. Talk about being disappointed. The guy I've been using was pretty upset for as well and spent some time under the hood messing with ECU and Wiring Harness.

And .... we found the problem ... finally. It's the middle plug ( pig tail ? ) connector ( white 32 pin ) that connects to the ECU. You jiggle it around and the truck starts right up no problem. He put twists in the connector cables for sideways force and then cleaned the pins on the ECU with a spray and then gave them a very slight bend in hopes of making a better connection with the connector. The truck was running but it would still die if I hit a big enough bump on the road. My neighbor across the street offered to isolate the bad pins and replace the. This is the FedEx Aircraft Mechanic I mentioned earlier in my posts.

He was just over and the connector is so worn out the inner lock that holds the pins on the inside of the connector doesn't do it's job which could be why I have a bad connection in the first place.

It's weird, when I have a solid connection the fuel gauge and passenger headlight works, when I don't, the truck will run but the fuel gauge and headlight won't operate. Sometimes the fuel pump makes a high winding sound which is a bit concerning at times as well. For the longest time I thought the headlight blew out.

I've looked around online to purchase brand new connectors and wires to splice in. No luck. I found a few online but the idiots cut the wires too short which makes no sense. What years can I use or can I buy this new with wires? I haven't tried the junk yards yet.

A huge thank you to this community for assisting me along the way. Greatly appreciated. Tom -

 

check with one of our vendors "CARID" They might have a source for you.Premier Vendor listing is managed by: carid - Send a private message CARiDShow Vendor's Threads
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Ok, back with an update.

Girlfriend and I broke up after 8 years so was basically forced to get the truck going.

Still having the same issue ... BUT ... it's 1000% pin pointed down to the middle pigtail that connects to the ECU. Where do I find one of these that's brand new, perhaps a revision / updated connector? I pulled one off a 98 donor but its still giving me issues. The ECU is good, no dirty or bent pins.

A buddy and me replaced the fuel injectors, that was fun. Had one leak but used an old o-ring and that fixed it. I have the pigtail zip tied down at an angle to give me a bit of a better connection. Since the zip ties and fuel injectors, truck puurrrrs but if I hit a bump, pull into a drive way or just the general giggle of the road, the truck dies. I get out, jiggle the connector, I'm good to go.

Any links to this part? What is the official name of this part. All I know is "pigtail" and or connector, ECU plug?

I've spent many many many hours looking for this part brand new. Cannot find it.

Thanks.

 

I was very lucky today and was able to find a 98 Dodge Dakota with a V6 3.9 Manual and took the ECM and Pigtails.

Do I have to reprogram this? Or is it plug and play? I just have to splice in the wires if so.

Thanks in advance.

 

I'd guess it would be plug and play... Not 100% sure.... I'm thinking all that would need to be done is the relearn on the drive cycle after you install it...