Hey everyone, hoping someone here can help me out with this problem i starting having. My 2000 Dakota was sitting for a couple of months and when I went to start it, the battery was dead. So I go to boost is and not sure what happened but I blew about 6 or 7 fuses. After changing the blown fuses that i found, the truck was working fine. But as of last week, my check engine light came on for a long standing minor evap. system leek. So I head over to a garage and ask them to clear like I always have. He checks the code while it's running and confirms the code but when he turns it off and switches the ignition to ON to clear it, the scanner says it can't communicate. This is a new shop I went to because i recently moved, does this make any sense or is he taking me for a ride? Anyone have any advice on this? I have a shop manual with a wiring diagram that shows all the connection but I'm not sure which one(s) to check. Any help would be great. Thanks!

 

I could be wrong, but I think starting in 2000 you can check the codes yourself and clear them. There is a thread with all the codes and how to check them at the top of the forum page.

 

Thanks for pointing me to that page, must have missed that part when I skimmed through it. Although I would still like to fix the problem and not just work around it.

 

Another question, I know about that fuse panel under the hood. When I looked at the wiring diagram I have, they make it seem like there are 2 levels. Comments?

 

As for your evap leak, you can start with a gas cap ~15 bucks for a generic or 30 for the real deal dodge one. You can also start out by going over every inch of your evap hoses. Just look at the sticker under the hood that shows the emissions control diagram. Follow each hose and look for any sort of crack. My problem was located in the hose between the Evap. Vac pump and the mechanic test connection. But can surface at any of the joints especially the evap canister. The evap lines are the roughly 1/4 in hoses. The evap canister should be located almost directly under the driver and the vac pump is probably right behind the driver head light. Good luck.