Hi everyone,

New here to the forum, after selling my '98 Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.9. Just got my first Ram 1500 in April, after purchasing it from the states in february and got it shipped overseas to me.
I received the truck in overall good condition, had 126.xxx miles, nice interior and beautiful exterior with just a few small dings on the bed.

I have a couple of questions to a few things I've begun to notice on the truck, now that I've had some time to get to know how it drives.

1. Everytime I start the engine now, (didn't do it the first month I had it) the engine starts up fine, but the oil pressure gauge in the instrument cluster, doesn't move and then the "Check Gauges" lights up. I get it resolved by turning the engine off and the start it up again, where then the oil pressure gauge acts "alive" by going up to normal pressure indication. Let the truck cool off and 20-30 mins later, the truck will do the same thing again when I go to start the engine. Is this a pressure sensor error or is it something electrical? I've tried hooking up my bluetooth obd reader, but it doesn't show any fault codes.

2. I bought an iPod connection adapter for the RB1 navigation head unit in the truck, but it doesn't seem to work flawlessly. The head unit just shows "Track 99" and the time counter jumps between showing "01:00" and "02:00" when the music plays. That's not a big problem, but what I've started noticing is that now whenever I drive, sometime after I've started the truck, the instrument cluster will beep a tone and then a quick flash either from the airbag, abs or check gauges will light once for a split second. I'm just wondering if it could be related to this aftermarket iPod adapter I've installed? Anybody experienced something similar?

3. I got the truck in April, where we still had quite alot of snow on the ground, so I got to try out the 4-wheel drive. Straight away I noticed that the driveline seemed to bind really hard on turns on dry surfaces, but I thought maybe that's just how the transfercase works. Had a similar problem in the Jeep with a long overdue viscous coupling in the NP249 that made the driveline bind up whenever I turned on dry surfaces. So I'm just wondering if the transfercase on the truck is suppose to bind like that on dry surfaces when the 4-wheel drive is engaged? Off course nothing to notice when I'm driving in 2-wheel drive like now.

4. I was used to a very roll happy Jeep, whenever I made quick turns the jeep would roll quite hard to the side. Now in the truck, I noticed the same thing, but quite a lot more than the Jeep. Now I know the truck is bigger and heavier than the Jeep, but this just seems like the shocks might be shot. I'm I right in thinking that if the shocks are shot the truck will be very easily rolled from side to side in turns? Or is this just the characteristics of the truck?

Hope someone can give their 5-cents of advice for a newbie on the Ram 1500.

 

First of all, welcome to the forum! Thats quite a list of questions... Im not sure about 1 and 2, for 3, you are not supposed to run 4x4 on dry surfaces, but when you say turn, do you mean close to full stroke? At an almost complete turn you will definitely get some binding, but I think that is pretty normal. If it's happening when you only are turning a small amount, like a sweeping right hand turn or something, then you may have some other problems. for #4, yeah you will get some body roll, but it shouldn't be super violent. This is a hard thing to quantify though... what seems like a lot to one person may not be much to another. Do you notice your shocks are bad going over bumps and things like that? May be worth it to replace them if so, it should help some. You can also check your stabilizer bars and make sure they look in good shape. I believe there are some aftermarket suspension stabilizing components you can purchase as well if you want to stiffen it up side to side.

 

Welcome to Dodge Forum!

I will address these one by one for you.

1) The most common cause of this problem is a bad oil pressure sensor on the engine block, which ends up sending a bad signal and the gauge will read ZERO. I would start by replacing this sensor and see if it fixes your gauge problem.

2) I have seen this happen before when I installed mobile electronics for awhile as an MECP certified technician. What brand & model IPOD adapter are you using? (I'll be able to help you better after I know that info).

Usually this problem occurs when the Ipod cable/adapter is not compatible with the "newer" Ipods/iphones/etc. Most commonly this happens in 3rd Gen Ipod/Iphone products and newer because Apple changed some of the data-transfer pin outs on their products so the cables are not getting the right information. I can recommend some other products that would better suit you but I'd need to know what Year your truck is, as well as if it has the infinity sound system or not. (I read that you have navigation so I know that part at least).


3) The 4wd in the Dodge Ram is a Locking 4x4 system where it will drive all of the wheels at the same speed all the time. Which means when the tires have good traction on a turn the truck does not allow the outside wheels to spin at a different speed than the inside wheels which causes the system to "BIND UP" and that is what you are feeling... To minimize the binding you can take wider turns at a slower speed.

4) These Trucks have a much longer suspension travel than your Jeep did (unless it had a lift or something), and with the additional weight it will roll much more.

If your shocks are blown or worn you will feel the truck "bounce" more than 2-3 times if it hits a bump in the road at speeds over 25mph.... and it may sag while it is sitting on a level surface. They aren't hard to replace so if you feel like replacing them it won't hurt.

Hope that helps!

 

truck info is in the sig.

 

Yes but it still doesn't tell me if he has the infinity system or not... helps a lot to know that little tidbit...

 

Yes the driveline binds even at slight turns on dry pavement. Reason why I was driving in 4-wheel drive in April, was because there was still snow in about 80% of the city, but I couldn't avoid hitting dry patches with the 4-wheel drive engaged.

Concerning the body roll, doesn't seem to be the shocks then. It doesn't bounce at all over bumps, so either it's the swaybars or just me that needs to get used to the truck. But thank you for your input, it's greatly appreciated.

 

I'll try and find a new oil pressure sensor online then, would you happen to know the P/N? If not, I'll flip through the parts catalog for the truck.

The adapter I bought on eBay is the iSimple Bytesound: https://www.isimplesolutions.com/int...SoundByte.aspx
Only reason why I bought it, was because the original Mopar Ipod connection kit for the truck is discontinued and costing a whopping 315$ on eBay. But now I'm almost regretting it. I wanted to keep the soundsystem stock for the time being, which by the way is the factory upgraded infinity system with the RB1 navigation head unit and amplifier.
And I'm currently using a 4th gen iPod Nano for the music collection. Tried a 4th gen iPod Touch, but that didn't work out, it would give a crackle like glitch sound every time I changed to a new song. So that got swapped out for the 4th gen iPod nano. Now if I were to buy the original Mopar kit, would there be any similar problems, like I'm having with this iSimple adapter?

In regards to the roll, it doesn't seem to be the shocks, the truck does not seem to bounce at all, when I go over bumps. When checking the sway bars, should I be looking for something specific? Like worn bushings or anything else? I'm still learning the setup of this truck. But the truck is bone stock at this point, besides from some comestic restoration on the exterior.

And thank you for your input, it's greatly appreciated.

 

The "Vehicle Specific" Isimple kits are NOT compatible with pretty much any Dodge Ram (there are a few exceptions)..... What you should have gotten was this kit:

https://www.isimplesolutions.com/uni...nzIt-IS77.aspx

That is an FM Modulator (NOT FM Transmitter) and you will need 2 of the Chrysler/Dodge Antenna Adapters, CR-10 and CR-20 @ Best Buy if I remember right, which turn the FM Antenna wire into a universal connection and back to the OEM connector to go back into the OEM Stereo.

Then all you do is hard wire it to your stereo and a power source and fish the connector where ever you want it (or if you don't want it to charge your ipod then just run the flush mount aux cable somewhere on the dash with a small hole).

When you turn to a certain station, the system will switch (like a relay) the FM radio over to your Ipod connection.

I'm not going into extreme detail but trust me that will be the best way for you to get audio in your truck from your Ipod.

My only note for you will be that you should NOT tap into an existing ground wire, you should run your own ground to the chassis, otherwise you might get some "engine noise" which is caused by the fluctuation of DC power when the engine is running.

I hope that helps.

 

On the body roll, don't count the shocks out. My truck did not bounce over humps and bumps either. But I decided to change them anyway. Found 2 of them would compress very easily, then 5 mins to decompress on their own. Another was weak and last was so so. These were the factory shocks at 50k mi. Replaced them and a much better ride and less roll on corners.

 

Hey thanks a lot for the input, sounds like the current adapter is getting uninstalled. But would the original kit work without any problems? The is this one on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/270882046790...84.m1436.l2649

I just like the fact that I can control the iPod from the steering wheel controls. Doesn't seem you can do that with the FM Modulator.