So I bought a 1989 Dodge D100 (Ram) off the side of the road. It ran fine for a few days, and then came down with a chronic case of no spark – no start. After troubleshooting for a while, I narrowed the cause down to the Auto Shutdown Relay. The relay was replaced with a BWD R3177P from Advance and the truck ran great again. For a few days, after which it came down with a chronic case of no spark – no start.

After a moderate amount of troubleshooting, I narrowed the cause down to the Auto Shutdown Relay again. The relay was replaced with another BWD R3177P from Advance and I chalked it up to coincidence since the truck ran great. For a few days, when it stalled in traffic with a chronic case of no spark – no start.

After no troubleshooting whatsoever, being on the side of the road, I walked to Advance and purchased another BWD R3177P relay. Following replacement, the truck ran great, but it has only been one day and I can't chalk it up to coincidence anymore.

I know a little bit about how relays works, so I'm kind of puzzled at what conditions would be required to kill one repeatedly. I'm quite close to just bypassing the relay altogether with a jumper wire (possibly one with a 30A fuse), but I thought it'd be prudent to ask around first. The dead relays don't click when the trigger voltage is applied, and they don't close the 30-87 circuit. What could possibly be killing my ASD relay every few days?

 

Might want to try another brand. BWD is not the best out there.

 

Bought a low mileage 89 D100 with 318, no AC. Auto trans. Drove it home about 400 miles. Did all of the maintenance, and fixed a few minor problems. I did add headers and new exhaust. Now the truck wont start. No codes and when hooked to scanner, can see the ASD relay switching to on during ignition and killing the signal, stopping the truck from running.

Everything leads back to the ASD relay in tech manuals so bought one from Oreily. The only relay that even remotely looks like the one I bought is on the driver fender well but does not have the wires going to it that the shop manual says should be there. The relay that is there is a 4 blade, the new is 5 blade and did not solve the problem.

Any ideas on what could be going on? Im still leaning toward ASD relay but I dont think that mine is where Haynes and online says it is. Checked grounds, and pretty much every troubleshooting idea i could find and everything checks out ok, the truck just goes into auto shut down as soon as ignition comes on.

 

Check if you have 12v+ at the coil when cranking, If so the asd relay is working. The asd relay doesn't stay on if the key is in the run position. It will shut off after a few seconds with out the engine running.