'93 3.9L Dies When Cold

[Renegade2k]

I have a 1993 2wd Dakota with a 3.9L Auto. When I start it in the morning it starts right up. It sometimes dies immediately others it may die at a stop light.
It runs fine otherwise, no rough running then die.

It just dies out.

During the winter, very inconsistently it would have spouts of dying. It would be driving great and then just kill while driving. The only way of getting it started again was to hold the gas to the floor and keep it above 3k. it would run rough at this point. If I let it go below 2500, it would kill and no amount of throttle could save it.

I replaced the throttle body gasket while looking for the problem. This problem hasn't come back.

The current problem always starts right back up, but I know it shouldn't kill.

No Codes

[jwalker1970]

Three things to check on any V-6 or V-8 mopar:

#1. Throttle body coking. clean out your throttle body with carb cleaner while running. If you have black build up, you will loose idle sometimes.

#2. Intake horn inner gasket. (I've never done one on a V-6, but v-8s are a problem. TO CHECK: unhook PVC tube & plug both openings with fingers, unhook breather from valve cover. If there is vacuum in the valve cover (crank case) while running, (with pvc unhooked & blocked) then the gasket inside of the air plenem is blown. This will cause a poor idle.

#3. Is your battery fully charged. A battery that isn't fully charged will cause this vehicle to not idle.

[Renegade2k]

Well, I tried a distributer because it was loose and noisy when cold. I got better mileage.

No problems till today. It was bout 5 degrees and the truck has been sitting under a pile of snow in sub zero for weeks. obviously it complained a little when starting. after it started up, ran fine.

Until 10 miles later pulling off of the freeway, it just died and would not start back up without full throttle, had to keep above 2000 or would die. Tried doing neutral drop to get out of traffic, but it wouldn't even break the tires loose on the snow and would die. 10 min later it was back to normal.

[Renegade2k]

I did get codes this time. One of them I know is a VSS, it sometimes doesn't want to register and I loose overdrive, (but never at the same time I have this problem)

Codes

12

52

15

and 55 for completed test