Hi
I just purchased a 2001 Dakota and there were issues that I'm working on. First I didn't have any instrument panel lighting, but after some detective work, I found the reason to be the Illumination wire was not connected after an aftermarket stereo was installed by the previous owner. I connected this to the Ignition hot wire, and now I have IC Lighting, but it's on every time I turn the key. OK< that's not the worst thing that could happen, as long as I have them. Here is the kicker. My dimmer switch dims my parking lights, my IC lights do not dim. Does anyone know which wire and where it is would be crossed to make this happen. Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give me on this.
Joe O

 

Welcome to the forums!

I moved your post to the proper forum.

What wires did you connect to get the cluster lighting working? It'll give us a place to start looking.

Your parking lights are controlled by the CTM.

 

Thanks Dan, I'm new to this kind of thing, so anything you've done as a moderator is ok in my book.

I took the radio out, and there was an orange wire marked "Dash Lights" I believe it was labeled, and I put that to the red wire on the stereo, which is the ignition 'hot' to the stereo. There is a yellow "Constant" as well, but that would leave the lights on all the time, even with the ignition off, so I knew I didn't want to do that. I was not aware beforehand if the Marker/Parking lights had an issue, but based on what I found, I'm going to say there was.

 

There are two illumination wires at the radio. One is black/yellow, this is the illumination wire from the parking light circuit. It provides power to the lights in the factory radio, and it is straight 12 volts when the parking lights/headlights are turned on. The other illumination wire is orange. It supplies a variable power input to the factory radio from the parking light circuit. That makes the lights in the radio adjustable with the dimmer switch, the radio lights will go bright or dim the same as the rest of the dash lights.

You might try disconnecting the illumination wires at the radio. It does not sound like it is connected properly. If anything is connected to the orange and black/yellow wires in the dash, cut it loose. Check that you have 12 volts on the black/yellow wire with the parking lights on. Then check the orange wire, it should have 12 volts when the light switch is on and the dimmer dial is all the way up, and the voltage should steadily decrease as you rotate the dimmer down. If the dimmer wire is not working or you have no power on the orange wire, check your dash light fuse. It's a 5 amp fuse, #9 in the interior fuse panel.

It sounds like the parking lights may return to normal operation once you straighten out the illumination wiring at the radio. If the parking lights have no power or will not turn on, check fuse #4 at the interior fuse panel, that one is a 20 amp fuse.

Once you get this all straightened out, connect the illumination wire on the aftermarket radio to the orange wire in the dash. Do not connect anything to the black/yellow parking light wire in the dash. The ignition power wire goes to the red/white wire in the dash and the constant power wire goes to the pink wire in the dash. The lights in the aftermarket radio should dim down just a little when you turn on the parking light/headlight switch, but they will not dim down variably like the factory radio lights did.

Jimmy

 

These wires, are they on the radio side of the harness or the truck side? Dodge wouldn't have labeled them.

"Constant" on your aftermarket radio means it needs to be "hot" all the time. It isn't for the lights, it's for the memory in the radio, the clock, etc.

Truck Side:

Pink Wire on the gray connector (C1) is constant hot. Connect to "ignition hot."
Red with White Tracer on C1 is switched hot (off the ignition switch). Connect to "constant."
Orange Wire is the panel lamp feed. Connect to "dash lights."


"Panel lights" would normally connect to the orange wire from the truck.

Seriously, it sounds like the radio wiring is a mess. Did the previous owner use a harness adapter (plug and play conversion) or just start splicing things in.

If you have a wiring diagram, or at least the info on the stereo, we can clarify this better.

 

The wiring that is labeled is from an aftermarket adapter. It's color coded to match the wires from the aftermarket radio, which go to the connectors that are factory installed the truck. It's a literal rats nest at the radio. They didn't use connectors, they just twisted the wires and taped them off, very amateurish in my opinion, to which they just bunched the wires up and taped them into a cluster. I can get the dash apart and take a photo but I'm not sure that would help, honestly, it's such a mess.

 

Post a pic if you can. It's likely your problem.

 

I'll get back to you as soon as I can, it'll take a few minutes to get the thing apart again. Thanks Dan, huge help so far!

 

I saw this same rat's nest hundreds of times in the past..I used to call it electrical spaghetti..You need to unplug the connector adapters and also cut loose any other garbage wiring at the radio. It is best to get it all cut loose and removed to a point where you are only working with the factory radio connector plugs/wires and nothing else. Then it will be a lot easier to identify what is wrong.

I am going to take a good educated guess here and guess that the previous installer used the adapter harness, which is fine, but he did not insulate or cap off the unused illumination wires in it. Either that or the tape they used got hot and slimy and came off on its own. The wires in the adapter harness come right out of the package with the ends already stripped, bare wire exposed about half an inch so it is easier to wire it up. In the adapter harness those wires will be solid orange and orange with a white stripe. If the ends of those illumination wires are bare and touch metal behind the dash or the case of the radio it will blow the parking light and/or dash light fuse(s).

There is no telling what else may be incorrect about the installation but you need to put the radio location wiring back to original and start from there with troubleshooting the dash light and parking light problems.

Jimmy

 

Hope they show up! Two photos, if not, I'll do one at a time, I have 3