i am having some problems with my newly purchased 97.. first of all is the cruise isnt working, and yes the vaccume line is ok and the light on the wheel comes on.. other than that nothing..

second my blower motor would come on and off when on high, no other speeds worked at all.. i put a new resistor in today and the fan wont come on at all.. the resistor was definately bad, it was all cracked and the solder was gone in one spot..

and third and most anoying is the truck will not start off the key twice now.. when this happened there was no click or anything, and no power to the trigger wire. after a few minuted of turning the key the first time it happened it started and worked normally for a week or so.. the second time it happened was in a drivethrough i shut the engine off to hear the speaker, when i went to start it nothing.. i had to get pushed out of the drive through..

i ended up sticking a fishing lure in the trigger wire connector by the battery and jumping it.. when i got home to start hunting for the problem the **** thing started right up again on the key so i couldnt easily find the problem.. i did however notice the + cable and all the wires going to it were very green on the drivers side batery so i cleaned all that up.. every other connection is spotless.. the problem hasnt happened since, but that was only yesterday..

is there an ignition switch problem with these 2nd gen dodges? i know there is with the 3rd.. or is the fan switch a common problem? please help, i sold my rock solid 99 GMC that never gave me a problem in 4 years for this ram and im starting to regret it..


oh, and i tried every search i could think of before posting.. thanks in advance

 

i guess cleaning the connection at the battery didnt fix the starting issue, this morning it wouldnt start again.. i had to jump it with my fishing lure twice, then all of a sudden it started working again when i shut it off to get the mail..

also the blower motor was working perfect this morning untill i shut the truck off and started it again.. wierd.. did the germans wire these things by chance? its really starting to remind me of a VW with all the electrical problems. the only constant is the cuise controll, it constantly doesnt work..

 

You might try cleaning up all the ground connections you can find. On my 2000 I even ran a couple extra grounds just for the heck of it.

You may also have worn starter contacts if you haven't fixed those already. You have to pull the starter to check for that, but it's no big deal.

Mike

 

i just got off the phone with the guy i bought the truck from and he said it happened once before and he traced it back to a plug under the dash slightly pulling apart.. he pushed it together and it was fine untill i bought it.. the problem with the fan seems to be the motor itself, it wasnt working this afternoon so i gave it a tap with a screw driver handle and it started working..

thanks for the reply mike, i will do that also just to be on the safe side, you can never have too many grounds..

 

bearing is going on the fan???

 

doesnt sound bad, i think its just worn contacts.. i will just change it one of these days, but its been working perfect since i gave it the wack..

 

13 year old truck is gonna have some problems. I'd check and clean all the grounds as suggested and trace all the wiring to the problem areas.

Did you get any junk out of the fan well when you changed the resistor? Mine was full of fir needles.

As for the ignition issue, starter contacts, battery cables, ignition switch...

 

there was nothing in there with the resistor, and since taping the motor with the screwdriver its been fine, but i will need a motor soon.. and there hasnt been a starting issue since i talked to the old owner and he told me to check a connector under the dash.. it was pulled apart just a little bit so i put it back together and it seems good.. now to figure out the CC and AC..