Driving my truck last night on the highway with cruise control on between 65-70 mph. Pulling off the highway I see my overhead display reads "CCd". Truck is still running fine, I pull over and break out my service manual and do a quick visual scan over the "codes" section and came up with nothing to tell me what "CCd" meant. I later figured out that it stands for "crystal clear display" but still unsure of why it appeared for a short period.

I continued driving to Super Pantry down the road and filled up the truck with gas (LOL joke). After filling up, I called a buddy and as we were talking on the phone with my truck idling, I noticed that all the lights (on the dash, headlights, all visible lights) were dimming and my voltage was dropping down to around 8v and then would climb back up to just above 14v and the lights would kick back to being bright (CCd has not been displayed for about 20 mins now and only happened that one time!). The dimming was intermittently up and down for about 2 minutes after starting the truck, but after running for a while, it never happened again that I've noticed.

Any ideas what could be going on? I wondered if it could be a bad battery? Temp. just dropped pretty substantially in the past week... if battery is unlikely, what other possibilities?

... I did notice that it cranked a bit slower than normal a couple mornings ago... that was another reason I considered that possibility of a battery being bad.

I really hope I dont have to chase wires... ugh my least favorite part of ANYTHING!!! WIRING $&#%^$*#(@)$&$^!!!!

Thanks in advance guys!

 

This generally is normal with a cold truck - its your grid heaters cycling and will stop once you are driving (ie once you hit 18 mph) or the truck is warm.

The overhead CCD message has nothing to do with it. Is your overhead temp reading ok? I assume not since i have the same issue on my 01. I believe its just the temperature sensor is fubar.

 

The things in common are the PCM, I think. It send a CAN broadcasted message to the OHD of the information you see, and controls alternator output. I had CCD on my OHD for a while and found a connector unplugged above where you left foot is. There is a pair of wire, a black and a purple, that are used for the CAN. Continuity between the PCM and OHD is necessary for all the info to be sent.

 

I think he knows more than me.

Might be worth putting a scanner on the truck.

 

So I might want to chase some wires and make sure connections are good? I'm unsure of what you mean by CAN (diesel jargon's a lil new to me).

I can probably take the truck by a shop that one of my buddy works at and run a scan after hours. It might not be a bad idea to run a scan regardless, considering I just got the truck not but 1 1/2 weeks ago and would like to see if anything comes up.. Or if the truck is not throwing any codes would a scan show anything at all?

I'm sure all this stuff will come easier one of these days, but right now synchronizing 4 mikuni RS36's is sounding more enjoyable compared to running scan tools and messing with computers! .. I've never messed with the whole computer side of things on vehicles, my history with motors is all carb'd motorcycles and the injected ones had all the tuning outsourced.

thanks for replies guys!

 

I had this exact problem and I checks the black and purple wires and they where good. I cleaned my grounds on my batteries and it works great now. Gotta love dodge electronics!

 

Good to know. I'll go ahead and check connections and battery terminals.

So far it has not happened again since the one time before.

 

It sure wouldn't hurt to scan and remove any codes in the truck. You then know what has happened before, and start with a clean record for you next issue. I always do the same on the equipment I work on. Prevents wasted diagnosis on problems that don't exist.