Ive been having the common problem of overheating headlight switches. Im going to add some relays and fix it for good. Will 30A be big enough or should I use a 40A relay. Also I have the same issue with my blower motor switch it just keeps melting. Maybe ill do something similar for it too.

 

Defiantly sounds like you have a direct short! If you rewire, you may or may not fix the problem depending on where the short is. The bigger amperage a relay can handle is always better, dont go bigger on your fuse.

The fuse is at a certain amperage for a reason. If you go higher or dont fix your wiring problem, you could have a vehicle fire.

When do the wires overheat? Only when lights and blower are on, or at any given time on or off?

 

Its not a direct short. If it were the fuse would be blowing. The wires themselves never get hot just the switch. I did a search on this forum and this seems to be common with the RAM's so I decided that was most likely my issue. I cant run the high beams or the switch will melt. If I run the low beams for more than 30min the switch starts to smell like melting plastic.

 

do you have high wattage bulbs? sounds like a ground problem to me. just add a seperate ground in the harness (runs on the right side just below the pcm) and see if that seams to help out some. you can also use voltmeter to verify this. put your black lead on the bat neg and the red on the ground ckt in question. if you show voltage (i think spec is .5?) then you have a deffinate grounding issue. the fact that you have a blower switch issue kinda makes me suspect it more so. better take caution as to not burn down the dak. oh yeah and that whole personel safety crap.

 

Thats what I had original suspected, a bad ground. But after I searched around here and found that switch issue with the Rams i thought well maybe thats it. But if no one has had this happen with a Dakota then It just may be a bad ground after all. I have stock wattage bulbs, I think ill add a new ground and see what happens. Does anyone know if the headlight and blower switch share a common ground?

 

I would try the ground as 9652dakota suggested. I also like the idea of relays as they can handle a lot of amperage if you willing to do some rewiring. What year is your truck and what size engine?

 

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...t-install.html Here's a link from the FAQ that may help on how to upgrade your headlights.

 

Its a 93 with the 3.9

 

Well, I got it done. A couple 40A relays, Hella 80/100watt 9007's. What a difference for the first time in the 3 years Ive owned the truck can I actually see decently at night. Now that I have this swap done, I am curious has anyone had success with buffing their headlights?

 

Can you tell me how you installed the relays? My 93 did the same thing to me. If I turned the headlights off then on, they would stay on till I used high beams...then go out after bout 5 miles.