constant stalling

I just bought my 2nd ram this one is a 1988 W250, my older one is a 1990 w250. When I bought the 88 a couple of weeks ago, I borrowed a plate from a buddy of mine and drove the truck home (an hour drive from sellers house to mine), and it ran fine. I wanted to take the truck out yesterday, I started it up in the driveway to let it run. Came out a min. later and the truck had stalled, whatever it started right back up, and off I went. 4 miles from my house, it just quits, no notice just quit. Started back up, half mile, quit again, this time I was going down hill, so I downshifted, popped the clutch, ran for a few hundred feet, dead. Now I'm sitting there, and it took about 5 min before it would start, so I limped back home. Any ideas??? The truck is a 1988 W250, 4 spd with a 318.
Thanks, Rob

Being an older 318 you should have an in line fuel filter, how does that look? Will also have a mechanical fuel pump on the side of the block if im thinking right. Both could have pulled up debris from the bottom of the fuel tank. Did the owner give you any background on the truck?

yes the owner gave me a load of B.S. none of it was true, which I knew at the time, but I got a great deal on the truck so I went with it. I do know that it sat for about a year before I bought it. I do still have my old truck so I have parts, I can switch around if need be. I think the sending unit might be bad, I filled the tank when I bought it, and 50 miles later it showed a half tank.

If it is a fuel problem, wouldn't the motor stutter or balk or something? When driving, it goes just fine, then nothing. I did notice that the oil light comes on and the needle on the oil pressure gauge is at the lowest mark on the gauge. I think the oil pres. was low on my other ram too. I feel like its electrical, or sensor related but I could be very wrong.

Its possible, you can check the disp cap for a crack or the rotor to see if its going bad. Do you have a spark tester to toss on the truck when it dies out to see if your loosing spark? I would also see about hooking a mechanical oil pressure gauge into the truck to get a true reading.

well just to follow up on this, I pulled the dist. cap off, it looked pretty beat inside and the dist. plate looked worse, so I pulled the whole distributor off the other truck and now it runs just fine. I thought I had fixed the problem already so maybe it will start to stall on me again, but for now it seems ok.

Fot that year you can prob pick up a new Mopar Performance one for not alot of $$$ compaired to a Napa or whatever.

Stalling

My 04 1500 hemi had stalling issues. It happened occasionally while slowing down, once while idling in the driveway. I usually drive about 10 miles to work and 10 miles back. The day I was moving out of my house- using the truck a lot- it stalled many times.

When hall effect sensors, such as the camshaft position sensor and the crankshaft position sensor, start to fail it always seems to be after they engine is at operating temperature for a while. Some forum posts indicated these could be the issue.

At $25 apiece I did not bother to try to figure out which one it was, I replaced them both. Each sensor has one bolt holding it in, making it a super easy fix.

The Camshaft position sensor is in a position making it hard to inspect the electrical connection and see how to disconnect it without damaging the latch. Just remove the bolt and take out the sensor with the electrical connector still on, then disconnect the electrical out in the open where you can see it.

It has not stalled since I changed the sensors and have made at least two trips longer than the usual time it took to have a stall. I think that was the cure Thanks to the forum for helping me diagnose my Dodge!