Engine shutdown

Before tune up, truck ran fine. After changing wires, distributor, rotor and plugs. The truck cranks fine but when put in gear it shuts down quickly. Can someone offer me any suggestion Truck is 98-ram 1500. 5.2

Does it idle ok? You may have a plug wire crossed of something. I always do mine one at a time so I don't mix them up.

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Agree with Marciel, I'd give the wires another look. Did you change them one at a time or did you yank them all off at once and go from there? I remember back in the day when I started getting serious about doing my own wrenching. I changed the plug wires on my 4 cylinder Honda and noobishly pulled all the wires at once because I was absolutely sure that I'd put the new ones on right. Surprise surprise, I finished the job and the engine wouldn't fire for nothing. Looking at a diagram, turns out I had the wires "advanced" by one terminal on the distributor cap. Duh!

At least I got the firing order right, LOL.

Marciel Industries said:

Does it idle ok? You may have a plug wire crossed of something. I always do mine one at a time so I don't mix them up.

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yes rechecked wires, they're correct. Wonder could wires be off by one position

Yeret said:

Agree with Marciel, I'd give the wires another look. Did you change them one at a time or did you yank them all off at once and go from there? I remember back in the day when I started getting serious about doing my own wrenching. I changed the plug wires on my 4 cylinder Honda and noobishly pulled all the wires at once because I was absolutely sure that I'd put the new ones on right. Surprise surprise, I finished the job and the engine wouldn't fire for nothing. Looking at a diagram, turns out I had the wires "advanced" by one terminal on the distributor cap. Duh!

At least I got the firing order right, LOL.

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Firing order is correct, I'll try advancing wires

So, you did what I did and pulled all the wires off the engine at once rather than removing/replacing them one at a time?

It is possible for a V8 to have a couple of wires misplaced and still run. Pops and a friend did the plug wires on my mom's Trans Am several years back and afterwards the engine would run but idled very rough and would backfire through the carburetor whenever you snapped the throttle. Turns out pop's friend had misplaced two plug wires. Switched them around and problem solved.

Pull the cap off and look at the area inside. There's a plate sensor (cam pickup). It has a notch on the left side that indicates cylinder 1. Use that for your starting pointv and follow the firing order stamped on the intake manifold

Also DO NOT spin the distributor thinking you're advancing timing. That's not how these work. Verify plugs are copper core and cap/rotor are brass. No crossing wires because they'll "talk" to each other and lead to misfires. Verify cam pickup wiring and crank sensor wiring were not damaged

Truck stalls when put in gear

Sorry it took so long to reply back, appreciate the feedback. Truck runs perfect when cranked, jacked rear wheels off ground, no issue as soon as I touch brakes shuts down. Previously before any of this began tranny was bad replaced transmission, shifting was slow but did shift, and truck ran normal was able to drive. Decided to tune up, after tune-up truck would shut down when put in gear. Thanks for any help I can get! Also truck seemed to idle up after tuning up, and when shifting it's a hard drop, but immediately stalls when pressure is applied to rear wheels

Hmm, sounds like a torque converter issue to me. The TC is supposed to "slip" while sitting in gear at idle otherwise the engine would stall. It's like starting a manual in gear, the engine will fire but kill immediately afterwards. Not before lurching the car forward and almost running over the person standing in front of it. *cough cough*

Considering that you say the problem disappears when you jack up the rear wheels seems to support this; the free-spinning wheels are providing the "slip" that the engine needs to not kill.

Did you replace the tranny with a new/rebuilt or used unit?

With used,

Looking back at your original post, did you replace the entire distributor or just the cap/rotor? As Pepper pointed out, these distributors have to be set as perfect as you can get and then have the fuel trim fine-tuned with the aid of some kind of uber scanner.

Can you by chance get ahold of a scanner that can record live data while the engine is running? This can be pretty handy for isolating potentially faulty sensors/systems that are worn enough to cause issues but not enough to interest the ECU's diagnostic module. I've always said that car computers are smart but they're not THAT smart.

Also, did you remove ANYTHING at all during the tune up? I know that the distributor on these engines are sitting on the back of the engine (bleck) and there are a few thingies back there that are easy to disturb while you're back there. Did you at any point go "crap, I think I just hit something?"

A faulty torque converter IS a bit of a stretch but engine stalling is one of those pain in the ass issues that can be caused by 1,001 different things. It is especially important to backtrack if the issue flared up only after the repair was done.