Electrical Issues

I have a 1994 dodge ram with a 5.2

my truck died 30 miles from my home and it didn't start. I did a bunch of investigation on forums and asked different mechanics all signs pointed to the Crankshaft position sensor. I have now replaced it and it still wont start. I have checked the coil and its ok. I also checked to make sure that power was going to the coil and I have 9 volts at the coil and the battery was at 11 volts ( due to cranking the crap out of it). The spark is super weak and intermittent. I know that I have fuel going to the rail. I also know that the crankshaft postion sensor is working or I wouldn't have any voltage at the coil. I am not sure what the next step is since electrical is not my strong suit. I also checked all the fuses unless I am missing where one could be??
any help would be great.

First, get a fully charged battery in it, a 2 volt drop under no load is a problem, but it depends on how you were testing it. The primary winding should be about 1 ohm to 1.2 ohms as long as its really close it should be fine. The secondary should have a resistance of 11K to 15K or there abouts. If you are measuring with a multimeter at the coil primary while cranking, you are are going to get a much lower voltage. As far as I know, there is no way to measure the primary winding on a coil without an oscilloscope, and most who own those aren't working on their cars.

I would make sure the coil is within operating parameters, then move on to the distributor and make sure its not super dirty or worn. Since you are only getting weak/intermittent spark I would take the wire directly off the distributor and hook it right into a spark plug tester and see if its strong or not there. If it is, then check out your distributor and wires there. If not, then you are going to be checking to make sure your wires coming from the secondary coil are good, and backtrack it from there.

Coil should be 1ohm roughly between the 2 pins and 12-15k between the tower and a pin. To simplify

Between the 2 pins on the bottom I got .7 ohms and between one of the pins and the tower I got 9.66 Ohms.
Thank you so much dapepper9 for simplifying and thank you dudeman2009. I am not sure if these results show a bad coil or not. ??

i would say the coil is bad. if you can smell the fuel and have spark but it is weak your coil is most likely bad but considering how old it is it is not too surprising that it has failed. i know i had the coil on my 93 die back in December.

Thanks crazzywolfie!!

Yea my truck has 220k on it and I have never had to mess with the coil. I will pick up a new and go from there!!

Yep coil is ******. Mine did the same thing and i got the same 9.6k reading on the tower. That's how i know the specs

dapepper9 thank you so much!! that fixed the issue. I hope this helps someone else in my position. Your awesome.
On an even better note my truck runs way better with the new sensor and ignition coil. I have yet to test drive it but just on exhaust note and the few revs I did I have never had it this responsive! I barely turned the key and it started! I couldn't be happier. $50 part and I am off and going!

Happy driving, glad you got it fixed so easily

please help new too this site and not sure how to use it to find what I need I have 06 ram2500 w/5.9 diesel

Brushhog said:

please help new too this site and not sure how to use it to find what I need I have 06 ram2500 w/5.9 diesel

Click to expand...

From the main screen, you are going to want to go to the 3rd Gen section for most of your questions your truck is a late gen 3, also the Cummins section for your diesel questions.

At the top there is a search function. I only use the advanced search as I can select the specific section of the forum to search. That way i'm not looking through posts relevant to a 2013 truck when mine is 2001.

Welcome to the forums, most here are nice. Just watch out on thread jacking, not using the search function first, and you will be fine.