My 98 ram 4x4 has been having a melt down. The battery has been dead in the morning so I have been jumping the truck with a charger. I have noticed that the dome lights stay on intermittantly I originally thought it might be a door switch but now I am seeing other problems. When I jumped it the other day I heard a chittering noise and found that the blue circuit breaker? in the side fuse box making the racket. (on the side of the instrument panel) The truck will also not idle. I haven't had the chance to clean the idle control valve yet, but these other issues cause me to wonder if the problem may be in the elecric control module. Any Ideas?

 

You need to have the battery checked out first and foremost.

 

I had the battery load tested recently, thats not the problem. Today, I started the truck and it immediately died. I restarted it and it ran fine. I drove it to town and on the way I hear the cd player ejector cycle. It was turned off. So I turned it on and it came onto radio and went out after 2 seconds and would not restart. It seems like there is stray voltage issues. Either that or the truck is possessed. The blue thing in the dashboard fuse block is the flasher relay. I had pulled that and have put it back and it is quiet now. I notice that the truck seems to run better in cold weather. At least since the weather turned cold the dome lights are out and the truck will idle.

 

Well, without anything specific to go on, it's pretty hard to troubleshoot from where we are sitting. I'm assuming you're still starting in the morning with a full sized battery charger on boost?

 

Sometimes I just set the charger on 2 amps and start the truck later. Other times I have boosted the truck at 125 amps.