Dear Great Garage Gods,

96 Dodge Ram 1500 180k miles

On cold nights when I get outta work late or just gotta head somewhere at night, like tonight at 30 degrees, my headlights have to 'warm up.' The truck operates fine otherwise. All other electronics work fine radio, dome lights, running lights, horn, etc. Except the cruise control switches on the wheel which has always been sporadic about working in the past 8 years I've driven it, don't know if it's related but I doubt it. Scenario: Crank up the truck (the overly long start problems from a while back went away by themselves shortly after my problem), turn on the running lights which is a knob you pull out once, then pull again all the way out to turn on the headlights. Wiggling, forcing, or turning the knob in any or all operating modes does nothing. Flicking the highbeam switch shows nothing from the headlights as well, not even the flash on the dashboard that accompanies this procedure. The colder it is the longer it takes. The cutoff point where it comes on normal is roughly 55-60 degrees outside temps. Tonight it took about 10 minutes of idling/revving the engine, I'm not tryin to push my luck with teh popo while coming down 64/440 with just running lights on. I'm pretty clueless about this except to think it's something mechanical or mechatronic in nature and not necessarily just electrical. Hot starts, in cold weather the lights operate normally. Wiggling the headlight wires doesn't do anything either.

11/24/2007 3:16:02 AM

Try replacing the headlights. A 12 year old car with a lot of use is going to have headlights that have started to burn out.

11/24/2007 3:25:47 AM

Grab a volt meter and check current pull when you turn your headlights on.

Could be that under cold temps, there's a very very slight disconnect in one of the cables going to the exterior lighting system that goes away when the wires warm up.

Have you noticed your rear running lights coming on with a delay too?

11/24/2007 3:26:45 AM

Gonna replace the bulbs and fuse tomorrow, pretty cheap to do. I haven't noticed or looked at the rear running lights, but know the front ones (and correlating inside dash lights) do turn on and off as they should. I was thinking the headlights are on a completely separate circuit, since when the knob is pulled out halfway, the full running light circuit is completed, and when the knob is pulled out all the way, it keeps the running circuit complete as it engages the headlight circuit. With that setup, its a given that when the headlights are on, the requisite running lights are on. I'll check it out, though. Thanks fellas, keep the suggestions comin.

11/24/2007 4:31:15 AM

you need to get a voltmeter and wiring schematic to figure it out when its cold, maybe try wiggling the wires at the fusebox

11/24/2007 7:06:37 AM

jesus people, talk about poking around in the dark, the dead giveaway is the damn dash highbeam indicator, you need to check the dimmer/multiswitch, and the headlight switch first.

both have the contacts lubricated by dielectric grease, it gets old and hard after a while, and the colder it is the thicker the grease, and the more likely it is to hold the contacts apart until it warms up, you see it on fords more oftenthan anything else, but beleive it or not, its not unheard of for a dodge to have electrical problems

11/24/2007 7:38:22 AM

Went ahead and put in new bulbs while I'm at this juncture, fuse is fine. ^ Thats more what I was thinking, but was just worried it was some random relay in a harness stuck somewhere physically impossible to get to under the dash and wouldn't be worth my time to get fixed by a professional mechanic.

Took out the dash and faceplate and this switch unhooked out, easy to get to. The gangly silver part between the front plate and black box operates all the dimmer/dome/cargo light circuits and really doesn't help me. Figures, the relays for the running light and headlights are inside this riveted box. The question now is, if I drill out the buck-tail I can get inside and relube/rebend any contact points, but would I just be able to bolt and nut this thing back together? The entire silver piece is the ground for all of the rivets so I assume as long as I make good bare contacts with the bolts it'll work fine. I'm confident this part is well over 100 bucks at the stealership, especially seeing so many junk parts sites with demands for this piece. Doing this is easier for me. The rivets are exactly 1" long and 1/8" tube dia. if it helps.

One last thing, theres a small spring button on the underside of this, no idea what it does. Kinda fuzzy, but its that silvery raised prong in the center. Any clue?



[Edited on November 24, 2007 at 6:14 PM. Reason : damit]

11/24/2007 6:12:17 PM

it's part of the dimmer mechanism.

i can't imagine a replacement switch would be that much, but i don't know for sure.

11/24/2007 6:52:29 PM

Hah, it's always more than I think it is, no matter what I have to get. Lol, my top plastic dash, its shattered and cracked everywhere and my VIN plate is almost ready to nosedive behind the dashboard. Yeah, $800 for the top and dash face together as a package, they cant sell them separately. Guy told me even if they could it'd still be about $200 for just that trim piece. My drivers electronic window switch broke, thought it'd be $25, think it was closer to 50. The secondary hood latch fell off on the highway (wtf?), its a piece of bent rod that was about $35. This I'm thinkin would be 60-80 for someone reasonably, so the stealership would be close to 1.5-2 times that. Still gonna check with them, but I'm not holding my breath on it. Gonna get to crackin on this dam thing.

11/24/2007 7:26:48 PM

Quote :

"One last thing, theres a small spring button on the underside of this, no idea what it does. Kinda fuzzy, but its that silvery raised prong in the center. Any clue?"

press the button, and pull the knob all the way out.

11/24/2007 7:29:41 PM

Dude I had this exact same problem. I took it over to slowblack96 at jiffy lube and he put in halogen fluid so it would not freeze up. Since then they have been brighter than ever.

11/24/2007 8:58:35 PM

yeah, the switch relay isn't that much. I have a 97 Dakota that the headlights and dash lights would go out on and I could mess with the switch and they'd come back on. Bought a new switch from advance(<$30). Took a couple minutes tops to change.


[Edited on November 24, 2007 at 11:12 PM. Reason : ]

11/24/2007 10:49:14 PM

Dude I had this exact same problem. I took it over to slowblack96 at jiffy lube and he put in 20w-50 on them so it would not freeze up. Since then they have been brighter than ever.

11/24/2007 11:08:03 PM

Well I'll be dipped in shit, took it apart, wiped the snot-lube out of it and bolted it back together. If I'd have known it was something that cheap I wouldve just bought the damn thing. I'll see if it works alright the next couple of cold nights. And I'll check my muffler bearings while I'm at it.

11/24/2007 11:33:07 PM

was there any corrosion on the contacts? i usually clean it good with alcohol and put a small amount of dielectric grease back on there

11/25/2007 9:42:33 AM

for what it's worth, in my experience these kind of temperature related electrical problems usually point to cold solder joints on some kind of circuit board or a bad relay

11/25/2007 11:36:25 AM

[Edited on November 25, 2007 at 11:56 AM. Reason : .]

11/25/2007 11:43:19 AM

your experience amounts to exactly nothing.

11/25/2007 12:06:04 PM

^4

Not that I could see, it was all copper contacts inside it, but there was a good amount of grease in between the sliding and stationary contacts. Removed the majority of the grease, which was pretty chunky, and checked for continuity and low resistance. So far it works alright. Worked fine this morning so I think thats fixed it.

11/25/2007 2:28:25 PM