I went to start my truck this morning and the battery was dead. When I jumped it it arked real hard and the abs motor went to running. I unhooked the batteries and charged them while I was at work. I unhooked the abs system which had a hot smell from running so long and hooked up the batteries. The truck wouldn't start and none of the dash worked.
We put a scanner on it and it showed no codes so we hooked the abs wiring and power to the abs motor back up and it didn't come on this time.
Now I'm stuck with a 02 that won't start and has no dash working. The blinkers, lights, and wipers work so it has power still. Does this sound like the computer on the firewall took a dump?
It was running fine when I parked it sunday afternoon. I'm at a lose.

 

I know one time i borowed my old mans gasser ram 1500 and i was driving and all the guages went dead truck kept running fine after about 15 more miles they came back on and never had a problem. Try disconecting and conecting some harneses check for corosion and melteds or bare wires,

Gotto start witht he simple stuff did you check fuses and stuff??

 

Dead short in one battery would be my first guess, only hook one up at a time and see if you get dash function back ???

Did you check fuses and relays for the ignition??

Some 02's (like mine) had short wires in the steering column. My ignition wire pulled loose, it would work in the extreme down position but not up at all.

 

Stormin Norman's got something there - I had a dead short with just one of the two batteries, and because the two batteries are connected in parallel - it drag down the entire battery system. Getting somebody to jump the batteries didn't work at all.

 

My mechanic looked deeper, it's bad I think. The ground wire for the trailer wiring is burnt in the harness. It blew the 140 amp fuse to the alternator, radio fuse and gauge cluster fuse.
His snapon computer won't communicate with the ecm or pcm. it will talk to the abs and body computer.
Gauges work, won't start. This makes me sick, it's a real nice 02 with 97,000 miles and now it will probably never be the same again. I've got a couple of people that might know how to fix it I hope. Anyone run into this kinda problem?
The batteries charged up fine so I'm thinking that is out.

 

Fuses dont blow for no reason. Sounds to me like you have something shorted to ground some place. Makes zero sense to blow that many fuses. I would get it to a dealer with experience. Other wise guess away.