1987 dodge D100 slant six. Did various things like new carb, water pump, etc. Got it all OK, bought plates, and IMMEDIATELY after putting on licence plates, the truck would not start.

A BRIEF surge of power to the coil when turning on the ignition, then nothing. This poor harness has splices and phantom wires that go to nothing. So...

Should I get a new harness / try to disassemble and simplify the old one / scrap the fenderwell computer and put in a points distributor / or something totally different?

Not much money, time or major skills, but if I am told what to do I can usually get it done.

This is, of course the truck I want to keep forever. Said that about 8 other vehicles, maybe this is the ONE.



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Bruce Westfall
Glouster, OH 45732
Just my 87 Dodge D100 and a 91 Dakota.
Accepting Cool Mopar donations so my sig is cooler.

An 87 wil have the lean burn system. Your best bet is to pull the lean burn ignition system and carburetor and replace them with an HEI ignition system and no-computer controlled carb.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

If you have more time than funds to invest into it I would suggest just tracking down the wires/circuits that are the issue and correct the problems as they are found... For igniton, the best overall swap you can do is HEI, its cheap, very simple to install, and can be wired in completely isolated from the rest of the car (beside the "start" wire)... But as mentioned, requires a different carb as well when eliminating the lean burn...

Ultimately, a custom wire job would be best because it will allow you to completely remove any trouble areas, but requires ALOT of patience and understanding of electrical systems and wiring diagrams... Not to mention they are expensive! Even the "cheap" universal kits are still pricey and generally cause mor issues than anything...

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"if it aint broke, fix it till it is"
78 Plymouth Volare Super Six wagon
89 Volkswagen Golf GTI 16v
92 Chevrolet K1500 5.7
98 Ford Escort ZX2 zetech

if you do plan to keep the truck and get the wiring, and other stuff right,,
get a factory service manual,,
when I re did my 83 D150,,the FSM was worth its weight in gold.

for the harness,, around here anyway, there are still D series trucks in the pull a parts,, I removed a complete under dash harness on a saturday afternoon,, an under hood harness would be even easier.
Chrysler did upgrade the firewall plug around 85-86, earlier fire wall plugs do not fit,,,so watch for that,

Rockauto,, last time I looked still had headlight, ignition and other interior switches..I picked up spares at the pull a part...

comments on ditching the lean burn are right-on,, lot of other D series stuff happening on this forum, so you will get support here

Have a very basic new carb. Just need to look into the HEI conversion.

More opinions very welcome. Thanks to all so far!

The lean burn ignition system was notorioulsy unreliable even when new and its reliabilty has not improved with time. Likely your no start problem is caused by a fault in the lean burn system. If you have a factory service manual, some time, and basic troubleshooting tools and skill you can likely repair the lean burn system, unless the cmputer has failed. Replacement lena burn computers are difficult an expensive to find.

Switching to HEI in a lean burn vehicle is incredibly simple yet will improve both performancer and economy. There are numerous threads on how to convert to HEI on this site, with pictures, irections, and lots of helpful commentary.

Aside form the lean burn systems, the wiring on even an 87 Dodge truck is so simple that you can likely repair what you have if you get the factory service manual with the wiring diagram.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Few years ago while I was rewiring my truck, I took the time to rewire the HEI module that I converted to a few years back.
I also took a picture of it.
I wanted to mount this in the original location of the Lean Burn computer. The engineers designed the computer housing to hook into the air intake for the engine to help with keeping the computer cool,
so I thought it would a good place to help keep the module cool.
Well I disassemble the computer and found that after pulling the electronics out of the housing I was left with an 8 3/4 inch X 4 inch area for a heat sink. So I picked up a piece of 1/4 in aluminum plate to fit in the housing, shouldn't have any heat sink issues. Some would say that I went thru allot of trouble to mount this module. But the housing is designed with 2 openings one where air is drawn in by the other opening that is connected by a hose to the breather intake hose, there by drawing cooler air across the entire inside of the housing. I have been driving it like this since 2007 and have not had any issues.

Here is a picture of the rewired module and ready to reassemble.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?ci ... 6xyhouBGNQ

I kept the vacuum advance pod in there just to plug that hole. Make note of how the pod is orientated when you pull the 2 halves of the housing apart, or it will not go back together easily.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?ci ... 8yvF3fYYso

all the wires I used when I did the conversion were all there plugged into the computer. There were 2 wires going to the coil, 2 to the distributor and 1 ground wire.
Here is a link to a PDF of the wire diagram from the factory service manual and wires highlighted that I used.
https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?ci ... s12eOvYLZI
doing this mod I was able to eliminate 15 wires from my wire harness.
I used a 6 pin GM weatherpack that I got from junk yard for $2 to make all the connections. Weatherpack is so that it will disconnect from main harness for removal if any repairs are necessary. Do not attempt to buy this weatherpack new from NAPA just the blank housings are $15 apiece!!!! By the time the guy had figured all the pins and seal I would have had $45 in just one six pin connector. I found mine on a K5 blazer for $2. I was able to reuse most of the seals and bought new pins as needed. I think I ended up with $10 or less invested in the connector.
Originally when doing the conversion I had tried using a dizzy out of 73 dodge truck. It had to much mechanical advance, 30 degrees total if I remember correctly. Grab one from a 78 Volare with Super Six setup and it made huge difference. I also used the Blaster 2 coil. There was no ballast resistor either.
Hope this will help.

Dave

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86 Miser 170,000+
2 1/4" exhaust
Holley 1920 #55
HEI MSD BLaster 2
17.8 mpg

I redid my 86 ram spring of 2012.
Just plan ahead any changes you want to make such as adding relays for headlights.
Alot of this stuff can be bought locally at NAPA but much more expensive, even with shipping added in on online orders.
Is your bulkhead connector in good shape? If so, the bulkhead terminals I used were available at NAPA , take one to match up and order them online, their much cheaper.

Headlight terminals are Packard 59. They can be bought
here http://www.pcsconnectors.com/
Here http://www.corsa-technic.com/index.php
Here https://www.terminalsandconnectors.com/


Other terminals and connectors can be found
here http://www.repairconnector.com/
here http://www.clipsandfasteners.com/O_E_M_ ... _s/259.htm
light socket brass terminals http://www.repairconnector.com/products ... ector.html


I bought this crimper for factory type terminals http://www.amazon.com/Tool-Aid-18960-Ra ... B006O1Y1FY
I bought this one for weatherpack terminals that i used http://www.amazon.com/Delphi-Packard-We ... sbs_auto_2

Wire can be bought
here http://motorsportswiring.com/ they wer great to deal with.
These guys got a lot of options as far weather you want them marked or not http://www.enoscustom.com/images/enos_c ... atalog.pdf
Do not buy Painless Performance bulk wire its 2 to3 times the price of what you will pay from motorsportswiring.com and you can get the same type TXL wire they use.

Dave

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86 Miser 170,000+
2 1/4" exhaust
Holley 1920 #55
HEI MSD BLaster 2
17.8 mpg

This is so true.
If your harness has been hacked up it will be nice to have the FSM manual to double check where wires are supposed to go.
FSM can be found here http://www.autobooksbishko.com/ they also have a store on Ebay where they are sometime's be found cheaper.
Also the manual will tell what gauge wire and color you need for shopping purposes instead of trying to look at a wire and guess the gauge of it.

Dave

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86 Miser 170,000+
2 1/4" exhaust
Holley 1920 #55
HEI MSD BLaster 2
17.8 mpg

This is exactly how a forum should work.

Thank you all for your help and information!

Sure is better than some boards where all you get is "Why don't you use the search function, stupid??"

Anyway. looking forward to sorting all this out and making the roads in SE Ohio better looking with an 87 dodge tooling down the highway!

- Bruce

For sure, go with the HEI. It is as simple as you will ever find. I have not run a relay on any of the 4 that I have done and I have not had a single problem. (No flames please) If you want the relay, more power to you. I view it as one more thing to go wrong on an extremely simple system.

I also ran the factory lean burn carb on 3 of mine for a while until I got the super six set-ups on. They ran better even with the Lean burn carbs still in place.

I would at least remove the bulkhead fitting and clean / scrub it out and and put some anti-oxidizing compound on the terminals. Then you know that you have at least a somewhat better connection on all of those wires passing through it.

Rick

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

I don't have a relay on mine either.
I was expecting mine to be full of corrosion also, but it was sealed quit well and no corrosion.

Dave

_________________
86 Miser 170,000+
2 1/4" exhaust
Holley 1920 #55
HEI MSD BLaster 2
17.8 mpg