OK, This is how bad my day is going. Decided to address the sticking left
front caliper on my 96 Dakota 4x4 today. Installed the new one and bled
the brakes. Pedal felt good, so after putting everything away, started to
head out to take care of some errands. I get as far as the bottom of my
driveway and the brake pedal suddenly dropped to the floor. Great, Now
what? Look under the truck and find brake fluid pouring out the center,
just behind the oil pan. So I back the truck up the driveway into the spot
I just had it in. Shut it off, and get out to take a better look. I find
the brake line that crosses over to the right front wheel, popped right in
the middle of the cross member. Also noticed how bad all the lines looked,
all very rusty. (actually, everything under there is very rusty) This
doesn't surprise me as the truck is primarily used to plow my driveway in
the winter, along with mom's and in-laws. In the summer, it's used mostly to
travel between my house, Home Depot, the gas station and the dump. Anyhow,
figure it was time to replace all the lines. After looking under the truck
for a minute or two, I get back in and attempt to start it. However, now
the truck cranks but won't start. It's got a half a tank of gas. I poke
around under the hood for a few and it appears that it's not getting any
spark. No spark coming from the coil wire holding it about a quarter inch
above a ground. I pull the terminal off the coil and did a check with my
meter. Has 12V for a split second when you first turn the key on, then drops
to nothing. When I did a primary resistance check on the coil, I get about
1.3 - 1.4 ohms with the test leads on the positive and negative terminals.
According to the Haynes manual I have, I should see between 0.95 to 1.2
ohms, so my reading seems a bit high. When I did a secondary resistance
test, I got about 13,500 ohms resistance when connecting one lead to one of
the primaries and the other to the large center pin the coil wire connects
to. Haynes manual says it should be between 11,300 and 15,300, so that
seems OK. However, I'm not convinced the coil is bad though the primary
resistance was higher than expected. I also swapped around the ASD relay
with the AC one, so I don't believe that's the problem.
Any ideas where else to check. When I cycled the key 3 times, I only got 12
& 55. Make sense and the truck had a dead battery a few weeks back and I
haven't cycled the key enough times to the 12 to clear. What else can I
check?
Walt
1996 Dakota 4x4 5.2L/Auto
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