It Cranks but won’t catch: there is no spark. The ground wires are all solid. There is fuel pressure.
I have replaced the following: Distributor Cap, Rotor, Camshaft Position Sensor, Crankshaft Position Sensor, Coil and Wire to Distributor, PCM (had a new one flashed to my VIN), Auto Shutoff Relay, Battery
Car Details: 2001 Dodge Ram Van 1500 5.2L v8 Automatic
Notes: I have had problems with the serpentine belt being cut by a pulley and a mechanic has told me this is caused by my Harmonic Balancer being bad. Also, I have reason to suspect I am loosing my Torque Converter.
Are you getting spark to the sparkplugs??? Pull one of the plugs and crank the engine…you should get a nice blue spark arching across the spark plug gap…(Note: you’ll have to ground the plug).
No spark at the plugs
Pull the main plug wire from the coil to the distributor cap, and see if you get spark there. You’ll have to almost ground that…about 1/8 to 1/4 inch from the engine.
If you have spark, verify the rotor and cap are the right ones. They can look the same, and not be right.
If you don’t have spark, then go to the coil. Verify you have 12v power on the supply wire. if you do, then either the coil is bad, or the switching unit is bad.
So you WERE driving one day and it shut down…then you replaced all this stuff? THen are you able to do the same thing the next day and she shuts down again… OR is she totally not running now…Cranks but wont catch? I think it is the latter scenario…sorry I am a little slow today.
You may have a bad distributor…Under the cap and rotor are a pickup and rotor. they also tell the coil when to fire…Hmm or do they tell the injectors when to fire on this engine? If the pickup went bad in the distributor…you will NOT get spark…it is also quite a common failure. I will have to lookup if the pickup fires the injectors on this engine…stay tuned… But those pickups DO fail.
Instead of paying for all those parts you should have taken it to a mechanic who would logicaly diagnose your ignition system one step at a time.
Has the van even been scanned for codes?
Not being facetious, but the distributor is rotating isn’t it?
Since there’s often more than one or two power sources involved with modern EEC systems have you checked ALL fuses and fusible links?
As OK4450 indicated, making sure the ignition system is getting power to it should be the very first thing done when looking into a problem like this. I suspect a lack of power is the real cause of this trouble.
I think time for a mechanic. My first thought would have been the crank sensor and balancer. Second would have been the timing chain. Take a look see through the oil filler while the engine is cranked and see if the lifters move or not. A crank sensor will shut the engine down, but a cam sensor will keep it running until shut down and not restart. Just throwing parts at it without a proper diagnosis. Worst that can happen is the mechanic will charge $100 to tell you exactly what it is-then you can decide who should fix it.
On reviewing the Crank Position Sensor design, I noted that the hall effect sensor produces its signel from the rim of the flex plate. Since the engine will not run if the CKS signel is missing, I am wondering if the flex plate has moved away from the hall effect sensor. That might explain your serpentine belt and torque converter problems.
So check the crankshaft end play. Pull the vibration damper forward; take a measurement; push it back; take another measurement; and subtract the large from the smaller. If that end play is out of tolerance, you may have found the problem.
Hope this helps.
Check to affirm the distributer is turning. It’s probably a failure in the dist. or coil.