Long time lurker, first time where I'm stumped to the point I needed to register and make a post.
This is my 1985 Dodge Ram 50, California emission 4G63B (G63B) manual 2wd truck.
I bought it a few months ago for $400 needing some carb cleanup and vacuum/pcv lines finished as some kid slapped a weber 32/36 on it and didn't know what they were doing to finish it. After getting it running decently, it's been a solid work truck up until last week after a 400 mile excursion all around the bay area picking up parts for another headache project of mine. Literally backing up into my driveway, it gave up the ghost.
At first I thought it was a fuel issue, or maybe too low of compression (i'd be lying if I said the compression numbers on the engine are great, and that it doesn't consume oil) However reading another post that I can't seem to find here on the forums, someone made mention of very similar symptoms.
I believe I have weak spark/dead ICM. Fuel pressure is great, new pump, holley regulator, clean genuine weber 32/36, pressure set smack at 3.1PSI. Timing didn't jump because every once and awhile it will crank to life, maybe it'll idle and then act like it floods out, or other times you can rev it up but when it comes back down to idle it back fires and dies taking quite a bit of effort to get it to restart.
I saw a post earlier with someone having the same symptoms and it boiled down to a bad distributor. Looking for others opinions as I've pretty much thrown the parts cannon at everything else that could have been bad. New coil, new ballast, plugs, wires, cap and rotor, aforementioned fuel pump and regulator, etc.
I also had a question as to what the ECM on these things is for, and I grabbed a spare from a junkyard that I yoinked nearly an entire interior for my truck yesterday just in case that could also be part of my problem.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I do use this truck all the time for mobile mechanic work and hauling small loads around for people. The HOA has not been a fan of it being dead in my driveway.
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