This is awsome!

teamliviD · Post by **teamliviD** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 7:29 am

So late last week i was driving my R/T and I look down at my gauges to see what my speed was. As I was looking I noticed smoke, thats right SMOKE coming from my steering colume. I pulled over and took the covers off to see what happened. Now for the last 2 weeks my high beams havent been working, but I thought no big deal. So, back to the colume, I feel around and everything is real hot by the headlight/turn signal/fog light selector. Well whatever it was stoped smoking. For the next few days I had been having problems turning on any lights. Yesterday morning I get in my car, start it, go to turn on the headlights and nothing! I was pissed. Luckly it was just starting to get light out. So I call Dodge and order brand new selector, $60, had my dad pick it up and I would install it that night. Got to my parents house that night, started pulling everything off and when I went to unplug the harness, I couldnt. I pulled the red clip, nothing, I broke off the red clip and still nothing. I flip the unit over and what do I see......the harness is melted to the selector unit. FU*K! So now I have to go to a junk yard and cut this harness off a nother neon and splice it into my car, put it all back together and hope it doesnt happen agian. The bad thing is I cant do this untill Thursday. Ah...this sucks! This kinda of sh*t is why I dont buy used cars.

Anyways, has this happened to anyone else? What would have caused this? Thanks for your help and letting me rant.

03sxt · Post by **03sxt** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 7:35 am

That's awesome!

I would've checked the wiring before the selector though.

But most likely, the short would've fried it out anyways. Good luck!

grambo · Post by **grambo** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 10:27 am

Sounds like you had a short @ the selector in the wiring. Prolly where it melted.
*Some dealerships keep a "junk" bin of wiring and harnesses. (Tracy Dodge does!) They will usually give you these parts for free and let you dig through the bin for whatever you want, Ask around with your parts manager. (I got injector connectors for free.)

dblsg · Post by **dblsg** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:06 pm

i think some people that had changed their headlight bulbs for higher wattage ones (or color ones) were having this problem with the selector switch..

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:12 pm

yea, what kind of headlights were in there?

Ive been fine with the silverstars, but i didnt up the wattage.

scneonchic · Post by **scneonchic** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:50 pm

I swithced to Street Glow Bulbs over a year ago and about a month ago I noticed smoke coming from my headlights one night. I popped the hood and couldnt see anything, so I just went home and after that I didnt drive it at night for a while, a month or more. I took it out one night and one of the bulbs was glowing this light orange color, like fire. So I thought it was just the bulb. Got Silverstars from work, and when i went to swap them out, I saw that the socket was compeletly burnt. So I bought higher wattage sockets from advance auto for a 9007 bulb and wired them in. everything works great now. The wiring on the new sockets is a lot thicker guage and seems alot sturdier.

teamliviD · Post by **teamliviD** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:03 pm

the lights them selfs are stock.

Floyd · Post by **Floyd** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:23 pm

teamliviD wrote:the lights them selfs are stock.

hmm must have just been a bad short

Post by **jonnymopar** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 12:53 pm

The connectors on the multifunction switch SUCK REAL BAD. Even if they've never seen heat, they are still fragile as hell. I found this out a few weeks ago swapping in my PT Cruiser switch.

BlackRoseRacing says there's a replacement pigtail harness for that, so if you can, definitely get that over one from the junkyard. The connector sucks, but better to get a brand new shitty connector rather than taking your chances with a boneyard connector.

rOniN · Post by **rOniN** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:57 pm

I had the same thing happen to me...what happened is that the selector was having too much current drawn through it. You must have added something to your electrical system that goes through the selector.

Do you have different fog lights other than the stock ones?

You will need the selector too. Open your old one up and you will see why.

To switch the selector and do the wires it took me about an hour. The fun part is wire matching.

grambo · Post by **grambo** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:19 pm

Maybe after market guages? That is a favorite spot for folks to wire their guages into their lighting circuit so they are switched with the headlamps and dash lighting........

Post by **Canada** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:28 pm

Where would be a better place to get a wire lead to run gauges? So that you can have them dim like your stock lighting?

teamliviD · Post by **teamliviD** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 5:24 pm

my silver r/t is all stock. the funny thing is, i went to the junk yard today and every harness i found was either cut off or melted like mine. i must have looked at about 15 2gens. this is a problem, but when i asked the dealer about it, they didnt have anything to say. the parts guy said they replace this stuff all the time.

i got the switch and just ordered the harness, so far this has cost only $115. ill have it fixed by next week.

Post by **jonnymopar** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 6:31 pm

teamliviD wrote:the funny thing is, i went to the junk yard today and every harness i found was either cut off or melted like mine. i must have looked at about 15 2gens.

This is exactly what I was hoping you wouldn't have to go through. How much was the harness anyway?

rOniN · Post by **rOniN** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 12:36 am

I did notice that when I was at the yard. Each car I looked at had a little melting problem but I just went with the best one. I checked the current running through it and found it was my foglights. I should have ran them differently.

Check the current running through your set-up once you replace those parts. I can't remember the stock current off the top of my head but there will be a clear difference. This will help solve the problem.

Good luck with the new parts.

BlackRoseRacing · Post by **BlackRoseRacing** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 6:04 am

5183442AA - $58.10msrp
The listing only comes up under 00-01 neons. If the dealership tries to look it up for anyother year there going to tell you its unavailable. I found out the hard way on my car, cuting and splicing a used connector is a PIA.

badboyracing · Post by **badboyracing** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 10:32 pm

i had this problem too, so what i did was bypass the wiring, used a 20 amp relay, put a switch and been working fine since, this is the same way u would wire up a set of foglights, now i have a 40 amp switch to power both fogs and high/low beams

Post by **Canada** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 10:51 pm

EclecticBlue wrote:Where would be a better place to get a wire lead to run gauges? So that you can have them dim like your stock lighting?

lilolneon · Post by **lilolneon** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:26 am

Too bad you dont have an ATX... you could use the wires that light up the ATX Shifter...

kc2005ptgt · Post by **kc2005ptgt** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:56 am

lilolneon wrote:Too bad you dont have an ATX... you could use the wires that light up the ATX Shifter...

I think even the MTX has the wiring in place already for it - I know I have 2 plugs that are hooked up to NADA under my center console; one under the shifter, the other under the arm rest portion.

lilolneon · Post by **lilolneon** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:01 am

that sounds like the ATX lite plug

Post by **Canada** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 9:54 am

Some of these?

lilolneon · Post by **lilolneon** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:24 pm

yep... thats them... i used that to power my under dash neons, and hood lights... but... i dont use those anymore

Broke the under dash neons... was usin some cheap computer cold cathodes..., and well... the Hood Lights, seem kinda ricey now to me... I use em cause it puts out a bit more fluid on the windsheild

which is good, to get bug juice off, and all the dust and crap i have on my windows daily... damn texas with its dirt...

03sxt · Post by **03sxt** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:28 pm

lilolneon wrote:the Hood Lights, seem kinda ricey now to me... I use em cause it puts out a bit more fluid on the windsheild which is good, to get bug juice off, and all the dust and crap i have on my windows daily... damn texas with its dirt...

Naw, the hood lights aren't ricey.

J8t4m · Post by **J8t4m** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:09 pm

What type of headlamps are you using ?

I fried my 03 SXT's switch and wiring using after market "Blue" headlamps - Make sure they are the same power rating as the OEM lamps

teamliviD · Post by **teamliviD** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:49 pm

Stock

kc2005ptgt · Post by **kc2005ptgt** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 7:32 pm

J8t4m wrote:I fried my 03 SXT's switch and wiring using after market "Blue" headlamps

No, they fried because you put blue headlights in your car, ricer!

just playing, yo!

01rtgurl · Post by **01rtgurl** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:23 pm

Same thing happened to me.... driving down to columbus i saw smoke, didnt know what the hell happened. later looked and the whole gray connector was split in half and melted. its still there, all my lights work so I never replaced it..... eek

refect · Post by **refect** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 10:31 pm

so how was frying your wiring awesome? hahaha you crazy fcker!

sllywhtboy · Post by **sllywhtboy** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 12:26 am

EclecticBlue wrote:Where would be a better place to get a wire lead to run gauges? So that you can have them dim like your stock lighting?

having them dim like the factory jobbies AND have enough current to NOT blow out any circuitry is a challenge. that said, your options are:
1. run your gauge lighting with a relay, signal coming from your parking lights. this will keep your aftermarket gauge lighting on when your parking lights are, but they will be full-brightness.
2. devise a circuit that has its own external source but uses a signal from the instrument cluster to control the output. this is so it doesn't draw from the instrument cluster lighting, blowing out that circuit. i'm envisioning a transistor circuit.