Engine Dies

its the Idle Air Control. it goes bad and creates the exact same symptoms you say.

ya, it bolts onto the front of the upper plenum. 2 bolts, maybe 5 minutes if you spend 4 of those minutes drinking a beer thinking about how to solve world hunger.

For what it's worth, my Truck recently was doing the same thing (2000 B4000/Ranger). It started out by occasionally totally cutting off on me when going up my driveway but did not do it all the time. Then last week I was leaving school and it died on me while driving like 45mph. I managed to get home and thought I'd go to autozone to get an IAC and a fuel filter (to try and fix some things I thought may have been causing the problem) ... Truck dies on me and I was stranded. It would run fine when idling but the second I put it into gear it would die.

Long story short, when it stranded me it threw a code ... Turns out it was my crankshaft position sensor. I bought a new one, put it on and problem solved! It was very odd and when it's like 100 degrees out, having to be towed by my stepdad back home really blew.

But before you go out and buy a CPS, I would replace the IAC and if you haven't changed your fuel filter in a while I would do that too. By the way, if your engine is running and you pop the hood is the engine making a humming noise? That is a classic IAC goin' bad symptom.

Just spray it with throttle body cleaner then hit it up with a little WD-40 ... It should fix it for a while but it'll probably start acting up again down the road. I've also read that 'tapping' on them can help too.

The IAC on my truck that is bad right now will make a humming noise (sounds like blowing into a glass coke bottle), really loud but only with the AC on. It is annoying but is not causing any performance issues right now so I just keep cleaning it .. lol (I'm a cheap ass sometimes)

Oh yeah, while you're at it, check out your throttle body and see if it is stupid nasty. If so, cleaning it wouldn't be a bad idea. Also, I'd recommend taking a look at your MAF especially if you have a K&N to see if it's dirty. If so, only use ELECTRICAL cleaner spray on it because it's teh delicate.