Melting Headlight Wiring Harness?
 

Well, the other day my headlights went out on my 96 2500. It was weird because my parking lights were still working. Figured I blew the headlight fuse.

Checked the 40amp fuse under the hood for the headlamps, and it was ok. So then I checked all my relays and other fuses on the off chance that something else may have blown and lead me to the problem, but nothing was wrong with them either.

So I finally ripped off the black dash trim that holds in the headlight switch (the one where the first click is the parking lights, 2nd click headlights, turn to left for dome lamp) to fiddle around with it and see if I could find anything.

Well, the back of the switch was VERY hot to the touch, and when I unplugged the wiring harness from it, I saw that all of the plastic around the pigtails on the harness were melted (not the plastic on the switch itself).

So I let it cool down, scraped off the melted plastic off the connections, and replugged it back in, and vola, it works again.

But, my headlights now flicker occasionally, and I have to do the same process of taking it apart and cleaning the connections every couple of days when it gets hot enough to melt the plastic on the harness.

Has anyone else ran into this problem? Is it a bad switch? I wouldn't think that it's a bad switch, cause it still works haha...

Anyhoo, any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. And sorry if I aint makin much sense, my brain's overworked and under intoxicated at the moment...

There is a recall/TSB that addresses this problem. The problem is that it only covers 3500 series trucks.

More than likely, the connector was most heavily melted at the area of the light green wire. Usually when it melts the connector, the switch is usually toast as well. Lights flickering is a very good indication of that.

http://dodgeram.info/tsb/recalls/819.htm

I have gone through this twice and finally found a dealer that would sell me the upgrade kit.

The TSB was for the added amperage of the fender lamps and end gate lamps. Biggest "issue" I saw back in the day was that people wired into the trucks park light circuit for thier trailer lights. A separate circuit should be used.

This also happened to my truck. I have replaced the light switch twice and the connector once. Since then I have installed the sport lamps and relays for the headlights. I have much brighter headlights and a cool light switch inside.

Link below is the Painless light wire harness. Once you have repaired existing wire and installed a new switch something like this must be installed to take the load off the OEM switch. The wire and switch that Dodge uses is much too small for the load applied. This harness runs lights, via a relay, directly off the battery.

http://www.painlessperformance.com/w...rchField=30815

Thanks guys.

Just trying to think what would be the easiest thing for me, what with my limited wiring skills.

Thinking about just going to a parts store and picking up 3 small switches. One for the parking lights, one for headlights, and one for the dome light. I know someone said something about cargo lights, but I don't think I have any... Does anyone have a diagram of which wires go to what (like which are the hot and ground for the parking/headlights/domelights/whatever)?

Or does my many-small-switches idea not fix the problem that cause the overheat in the first place?