Thanks for all the useful posts about the blower resistor pack. Wish I'd found the one about how to get to it before I tried to remove the dash!

Anyway, the pack itself appears to be fine in my case- tested it with a meter and get around .5, 1 and 2.5 Ohms across the pins - but the connector to it is damaged. I can get the blower to work if I pull the connector off the pack about 1/8", however.

Of course, my vehicle is out of warranty. This is obviously a defect but I've seen no reference to Chrysler accepting responsibility and replacing the harness or connector. If that's the case, I'll just come up with my own creative solution..
..a

 

.. forgot to add - what's interesting is that the connector next to the damaged one is common once you get inside the pack. You can see this in the picture of the pack. I was thinking it would be simple to "parallel" these wires on the back side of the connector - i.e. just "short" the first blue and the black wire to each other. This would spread the load across two pins, instead of just one.
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Replace the resister AND buy a replacement plug too. If the dealer won't sell the plug, you may have to cut one off of a junkyard donor.

IndyDurango

 

This is my post from a 03 model remove/replace. The resistor looks the same, and I dont know first hand but I would venture to guess that the wiring is the same. I completed this repair in mid October and so far so good. This is definitely something you want to take care of fairly soon. In addition to the air conditioning this also controls the defrost for ice and rain protection, well past winter so more rain than ice but you get the idea.

DISCLAIMER: THE WIRING SCHEMATIC REFERENCE WAS FOR A 2001-03 DAKOTA/DURANGO GEN 1. ALTHOUGH THE SCHEMATIC AND WIRING COLOR CODES COULD BE THE SAME PLEASE CHECK YOUR APPLICABLE YEAR/MODEL FOR VERIFICATION

"When I disconnected the resistor from the wiring harness, I noticed that the plastic was melted on the resistor around one of the metal prongs and also around one of the contacts on the harness... "

Which connector slot was melted? I will refresh everyones memory and this is from the schematic in the Chiltons Manual (20500) 2001-03 Dakota/Durango repair manuail Chapter 12 page 51.

OFF-- BLACK
LOW-- TAN
MED1-- LT GRN
MED2-- LT BLUE
HIGH-- BLACK/TAN

MOTOR-- BLUE/YELLOW (RESISTOR-MOTOR

MOTOR-- DARK GREEN (MOTOR- IGNITION, ACCESSORY/RUN)


With that said, YES I ditto, concurr/ +3 or however many yes answers there are!!! Here is what I did 1. Find a salvage yard, my donor vehicle was a Dakota, but just make sure remember the color coding, take photos etc...

It took me two tries but here goes. On the donor vehicle splice the wiring harness as far against the firewall as you can, get as much wire as you can. Once you cut obviously you are buying the resistor and harness, depending on the yard they may not sweat the extra wire, but thats between you the salvage yard, security cameras and the junkyard dogs. I kept my bad resistor and junkyard resistor for troubleshooting with the new one. Once I got the harness into the resistor, I was able to keep the resistor for troubleshooting. Once I was able to verify the resistor worked with the new harness splice I replaced the junkyard resistor with the dealer resistor and workd with full power all modes,/temperature/and fan speeds. As I write this I remember it was the power wire that had shorted and grounded out. The power wire between the resistor and the blower motor (DARK BLUE/YELLOW) Once I removed/replaced the harness it worked fine, I will caution you there could be a lot of extra wire to tuck up but at least it will work, I ziptied and electrical taped mine up under the dash. The key thing to remember, is cut on the firewall end for the harness that you are removing, and on the floor end of the vehicle you are splicing into, that way you have some slack.. I tell you this because I almost ran out of room for splicing because of bad splices and having to redo the connectors, I tell you this so you don't make the same mistake. The harness is a poor design, but we can't cry over spilled milk now. Dealer resistor was about $15 I believe, so that, $20 for a salvage yard harness, about $15 for wiring terminal connectors, electrical tape, and combination cutting and crimping pliers total $50

Good luck and once all my parts were in place, it took me about an hour but that was ops checking after each splice completion and taping/ziptie of more wire than normal.

FYI, Even though the Dakota is a different schematic, if you look at page 12-49 of the Chiltons manual the wiring color codes for the blower motor/resistor are the same. Please feel free to check for yourself especially before heading out to a salvage yard on my say so.


FYI Dealer does sell the harness, but there is a catch. As of last summer/fall. The dealer harness comes as a kit, as in wiring, backshell/connectors.etc. Kit is a generic wiring kit that could be used for many applications and basically you have to match the new wire to your existing harness and assemble the connector yourself. I believe the cost in Pittsburgh area was $60. Simple solution, Donor Dakota $20/resistor and harness. Since I knew mine was coming out, I cut it and brought the bad connector and harness into the salvage yard with me to get a good match of the new harness. Good luck, but again dont quote me on the Dakota Donor working especially since the Durangos changed styles in 04 but the Dakotas werent until 05.

Good Luck!!!

 

ElfGuy, This thread has been silent for a while, did the repair work?

 

Sorry for the delay, went out of town for a while.

I resolved it for the foreseeable future by soldering the black and first blue wire together on the connector side of the resistor pack. This spreads the load thru two pins. It had been working "ok" since I initially pulled it apart and put a kink in the pin of the resistor pack connector. Every now and then, you had to jiggle the connector to get it running again. \
..a

 

.. and it was still working fine when we turned it in off lease. Somebody else's problem now!
..a

 

"and it was still working fine when we turned it in off lease. Somebody else's problem now!"


That must be the "CREATIVE SOLUTION" you were talking about. LOL!!!!!