Question: 2000 5.9L Gas Wont Idle. 18V

Hello all,

I have a 2000 Ram 1500 with the 5.9L gas. A while ago, it appeared to stall when I put some load on the Engine. Shifting into reverse, engine would drop a little RPM then stall.

Then, it would randomly stall when driving. I would be accelerating and all power would leave. Then power comes back.

I didn't have the time to screw around with it, so I parked it. Its been close to a year if I had to guestimate.

I just jumped it, and it would immediately stall. Regardless if the jumpers were connected or not. The only way to keep it running is giving it gas. While I was holding the pedal down a hair, keeping RPM at 2k RPM or less, the alternator decided to output 18v. Yeah the battery is dead, but I have never seen an alternator do that.

I am not to sure where to go from here. I originally thought it might be fuel pump, now it wont run. I am now thinking its the ECM. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

Thanks

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u/danxthexman 27d ago

I had a 2000 5.9. I had the second instance where it wouldn’t even idle and you have to hold the rpms up to keep it from stalling. My battery was bad.

The first instance where it would stall during driving and accelerating I experienced when I was having ignition coil problems. I’ve had it shut off going 70 on the highway and wouldn’t fire back up for 10 minutes. I’m pretty sure this was ignition coil problems, which I believe was due to a tiny hairline crack I noticed on the rotor when it was replaced with the distributor cap.

Does it throw any codes?

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u/dpg3456 27d ago

Thank you for the reply.

It is not throwing any codes. That would make is easier.

The battery at the time was low, but wasnt dead. Still held a charge and would crank the engine.

I have not messed with the coil pack yet. I think it was replaced a while ago but not as of lately. The cap, rotor, wires and plugs are all fairly new.