Shut off while driving, the engine cranks but does not start?

1994 DODGE DAKOTA

135,000 MILES • 3.9L • V6 • 4WD • MANUAL

NATE LOFTUS

MEMBER
1 POST

I was driving to the groceries store one day and it died out without making any sounds. I checked for fuel and spark; I’m not getting any spark. The real issue is I’ve checked everything I could think of, and nothing has worked. New distributor rotor and cap, new coil pack, new ECM, all new fuses. New crankshaft positioning sensor, all spark plugs and wires and even a fresh battery. I’m still left with the truck cranking continuously without starting and I’m stumped and starting to get frustrated. Something that I haven’t checked or maybe overlooked would be helpful, I’m in a pickle.

Aug 15, 2023 at 6:01 AM

CARADIODOC

✓Experienced Mechanic
34,368 POSTS

Rather than go into a long, drawn-out discussion of how the system works, let's start out with the one most common suspect, and one you overlooked. That's the pick-up assembly in the distributor. It's a black plastic disc that sits right under the rotor in the distributor. We never approve of throwing random parts at a problem as a diagnostic method as that is the most costly and least effective way to solve this, however, this part has had such a high failure rate, let's start with it, then dig deeper if we need to.

Let me know what happens, then we'll figure out what comes next.

Aug 15, 2023 at 2:05 PM

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