Last week i lost my dash lights and have been trying to figure it out, it has been blowing the tail light fuse under the hood. I started looking at my problem today, i replaced the fuse and it didnt blow right away but i had smoke coming out of the dash. So i started tearing it apart, i took the speedometer out and found the melted wires. Directly behind the speedometer there is about 8 orange wires and 8 red wires that run into a block that clips on the dash directly behind steering wheel. Is this a relay for the lights or just a junction box?

thanks

 

/me moved here for more exposure

 

welcome to the wonderful world of dodge electrical wiring...

I know I've heard about the blowing the tail light fuse before but I cant remember exactly what it was. Do you run with your dash lights dimmed at all? When they are dimmed it causes the headlight switch to heat up and melt on some trucks but I'm not sure about your '01. The problem I had with my dash lights was due to the wonderful engineers at dodge running the electrical load for the headlights through the headlight switch. I had to replace the headlight switch and also the turnsignal switch to fix everything. I also had to Gerry-rig an inline fuse back into the factory fuse panel inside the door jam to fix the problem with the melted fuse panel.

 

This is a known problem in these trucks. If your drivin a dually there was a recall on it and Dodge will fix it. Even though our trucks are exactly the same the recall didn't cover single wheel trucks though. You just buy a new switch and install some heavier guage wiring to fix the problem. They just used to light a guage of wire to handle the load of all the driving, fog and headlights.

 

You can prevent this most times by not using the dimmer function on your interior lights. When you dim the dash lights it heats up the switch even more then normal.

 

thanks for the help i will replace the switch while i am in there and hopefully that will fix it. Do you know if that is just a junction block behind the speedometer where all my wires melted. My truck is a 01 2500 single rear wheel.

thanks

 

If your wires actually melted it could be anyplace in the line. I would change the whole wire out to a higher gauge if you really think it fried the wires. If you have any bare spots in the wire insulation it could lead to a short, everything from battery draw down to catching fire. I changed mine out but I'm sorry to say it has been way to many years and projects ago to remember what all it took to do it.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong because electrical on the trucks is not one of my strong points. I think you can replace the switch, and instead of running the wire from the switch to the headlights, run it from the switch to a relay and then to your headlights. This way your drawing power from the battery right to the headlights instead of power running through the switch. With this the switch itself is nothing more then a trigger to turn the lights on with.

 

daniel stern lighting sells a custom relay setup for the second gen trucks and the setup is supposed to be pretty good quality, but I dont have it on my truck. Pretty good idea to take the load off the headlight switch either way.

 

i am going to take my dash off tonight and see about replacing the bad sections for now and possibly changing it over like was previously suggested. Does anyone have any advice on dash removal my main concern is the airbags and how to safely disconnect to remove the dash.
thanks for the help

 

Here's the light wiring and relay's that would make this a simple install. You would still need to replace any actually burnt wires though. With this the wire size won't matter anymore because all the switch is, is the trigger mechanism. All the power comes right off the battery to the relay and never passes through the switch. https://www.dieselbombers.com/5-9l-2...t-harness.html

As far as the air bags. Disconnect all the battery terminals and turn the key to the on position to drain all residual power and then your air bag will be safe to work with. You really only have to pull the negative, but I hate air bags so overkill can sometimes keep you from being killed. Airbags are considered to be the most likely way to die for mechanics that are injured on the job. Hopefully somebody with more experiance then me will pop up with any words of warning about how to pull the dash and keep everything intact. I've pulled the instrument cluster but never the whole thing.