My bud has a 97 ram 1500 4x4 and just bought iy used from a friend of his but more often than none when driven it sputters shakes and the gauges go crazy and it dies i thought it might be a loose ground or croded ground any thoughts.

yea i would check the grounds first, the first one I would check would be just to the left of the a/c compressor, if that doesn't do it i would check the negative battery cable for corrosion. if that still doesn't solve it I would run a battery test on it. Just this weekend i had on that broke internally and gave me the same problems you are having, and when I checked it, it was giving me 3000 CCA

New battery and cleaned the terms i will relate this info as given.:shakehead