Hey guys, I just came back home from a hell of a night so excuse me if my text might be hard to understand. Here is what happened tonight, I went to my friend's house to move an old 240sx s13 we just sold out but we needed to deliver the car 2 hours away. Short story, everything was fine untill we connect the trailer lights. When we connected the trailer lights and the fuse for the cluster light (and day light I think) burned right away. We change the fuse for an other 20amp just like the one that was there (and supposed to be there) and it burned again right when we connected it again.

After cheking the 4 pins trailer's connector on my truck we decided to cut it and use some butt connector I had for this right gauge of wire. It's minus 30 celcius outside and I skinning wires and put the crimp connector one by one. Connect them one by one, protected them and it worked ! (Well this is what I was thinking) Stop light, both flasher, day light and the 4 flashers where working and the fuse didn't pop. So we moved the trailer near the garage to put the car on it and we turned the turck off and let the truck on the hazzards light for like 15 to 20 minutes since it was blocking one way of the street. Just the time to strap the car on the trailer for the trip. After the car straped, one of my friends told me: Hey your flasher are fu***ng slow on your truck !? So I stated my truck and the flasher came back to normal speed. I moved it away from the street and parked it ready to leave next to my friend's house ...

This is where it all started: My friend enter in the passenger side and I told him: Man don't you smell it, it's like plastic burning !!!??? So I looked around get out of the truck, check the wires for the trailer and one of the wires "The brown one" was hot and burning the shrink and tape on it ! Then I saw smoke coming out of the driver's window, so I disconnected the trailer' connector ASAP by pulling on the wires and run near the dash. A lot of smoke was coming out of the cluster then I heard a loud "WOUSHH" and saw a small fire-ball on the engine harness near the fuse box so I put my hand right on the harness stop the fire ! The crazyest thing is that it worked I actually stopped the fire with my hand ! Grabed some snow in the street because now I'm burn and I have cut my hand by slidind it too fast behing the dash ...

If one of the wire for the trailer would have been mix up I don't think all the lights would have worked when we tested them ? Edit: After inspection I'm almost sure we didn't mix up wires.

Truck is a Dodge Dakota 2001 V8 4.7L that has been in a crash in the past, maybe it could be a short in my truck or on the trailer ?

After more inspection we have done this week-end, there are shorts on 2 wires of the trailer when we tryed to test it with a battery. And my truck also seems to have a short when I do the light test . I will try the test without the radio fuse wich I was told that could turn the light on and since I need to open the door to pull the interior fuse could it be the reason the 40amp fuse in the engine bay was the one lighting my test light ? After I pulled that fuse out (interior lamp 40amp) the test light went almost off, just a bit bright so I think I have an other short or it was the radio. All the recalls has been done on my truck so that's why I'm asking for help ... I'm ready to try things and work, I'm also trying to find a new socket for the relay in a grave yard to weld&secure the wires so it will be ready to put a new relay. The truck runs fine without this relay, got the headlight and brake day light. I have no hazard, flasher, brake and front day light. Sorry but I'm trying to put as much information that I could.

Thanks !

-Pat Farly

By the way this text is like 3 days old so here are some pictures we found this week-end ...

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Damn, that sucks. I will move this to the 2nd Generation Dakota sub-forum.