Hi,
I took my Dakota for inspection today and they told me they could not get a read on my OBD II. They suggested it could simply be a blown fuse, and that I should check my cigar lighter. It worked, so I imagine that circuit is not the one that powers the OBD II diagnostic harness.

Everything on the truck seems to work, but before I take it to the shop I want to make sure it's not just a fuse problem.

Anyone know which circuit powers the OBD? I guess otherwise I have to check every fuse to see if one is dead.

Thanks all.

 

This is a duplicate of an earlier post, but i think I put it in the wrong category. My '97 Dakota did not pass inspection today, because they could not read the diagnostics. They think the problem is a blown fuse.

I do not know what fuse powers the OBD diagnostic plug. The cigar lighter works, but that is all I know to check.

Any ideas? I may otherwise have to check every fuse on the truck before I take it to a shop.

If it matters, the truck runs fine, so I really do think it is a fuse issue. Or perhaps a broken wire.

Thanks.

 

Does your interior light work? I think that's on the same fuse.

 

Same problem checked all my fuse plus under the hood none are bad? But my interior lights are out plus the glove box?

 

Dome light works. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

I will move this to the 2nd generation Dakota sub-forum.

 

I spent about an hour today checking fuses on my Dakota, of course all of them were good.

But I'd figured out from somewhere that the diagnostic connector supplies current to the scanner, so I removed my connector from its bracket and started examining things. I grounded my multi-tester to a bolt using a clamp, turned on the ignition and started probing from the front of the connector. Nothing worked until I wiggled each wire as I tested, and then one of them started showing 12.4 volts.

So I put everything back in place and took the truck to AutoZone to have it scanned, and that worked. After that I had it reinspected at Jiffy Lube and it passed.

So if anyone needs to know, it was one of the pink wires feeding the diagnostic connector. Looking from the front of the connector, it was one of the bottom row, right side wires. From behind, it is the last pink wire on the left, bottom row. I think you could just push them in a bit from behind and see if you get voltage.

Your experience may vary because there are several unused connections on the diagnostic plug.

Thanks to all for your suggestions.

 

Thanks for letting us know.

 

Never liked that connector mounting bracket looked kind of wicked sharp and it was rusty these past years so I took it off cleaned it up and wire wheeled it up to smooth the nasty looking steel edges up and painted it now it looks nice.

The newer ones are plastic

It looked like this one the other thing I did was the Parking brake release if you look has this extra peice of plastic that sticks out in the way that hooked my foot at times getting out I cut that off no more foot snags