My headlights have been having some issues lately.

It started out as the brights randomly shutting off after a somewhat long period of time of running them. Pushing the switch in to turn them off, and turn them back on took care of it for a little while longer.. and then they'd go off again.

Last night, it happened with the dims.. completely lost my headlights and turning them off and back on had no affect. I'm fortunate that I had some off-road lights to see my way home.

I was going to replace the headlight switch, but it looks brand new. The connector itself melted though. The solid green wire is where it melted, I haven't been able to find a diagram yet to know what the green wire is exactly.. was hoping someone here might know/have something?

I've noticed this is a really common problem, and have seen talk of being able to wire in a relay. Will this solve the issue of the heat on the switch itself? And I'm sure wiring in a relay isn't extremely complicated, but something I have never done before so if someone who knows is willing to break it down and explain to me what I need to get/do that would be great.

Also, will I be able to get a new connector from Dodge, or should I go junkyard hunting for a good one? It looks like I can just replace the plastic itself without having to hack up the wires?

 

Light green? (only solid green wire I see on the diagram...) That's the power feed for the headlights to the dimmer switch......

 

And you can download the FSM, complete with wiring diagrams, in the FAQ/DIY section. There is a thread here somewhere that has a wiring diagram for adding relays.

 

I have found the write up, but it says it is for 99 and higher, which has a different headlight switch than I do and I'm assuming a different wire harness as well.

HeyYou, yes it was the light green wire.

 

95 service manual.

 

It won't give me the diagram for the headlamp switch, I can view the other pages but when I try to view the switch it takes me back to the index page for that section.

 

I think it's 8w-50-2.. or some such. I just go to the wiring diagrams, and then page down to where I want to be....

 

It's 8w-50-4 for the headlight switch, and when I do that it skips from 50-3 to 50-8 for some reason.

But looking at 50-2 I think I'm seeing some of what I need.

But now my question is, the diagram I found shows that the relays need to be wired off the headlight switch.. and I'm only finding the colors for the high and low beam wires coming off of the multifunction switch in the diagram. There are several wires actually not accounted for on the headlight switch connector in that diagram.

In that diagram though, the high and low beam wires coming out of the multifunction switch.. the low says "16 VT WT" and the high is "16 RD OR." I'm assuming the RD OR is red and orange, but what is the VT WT? I'm sure WT is white, but what is VT?

 

VT is violet and VT WT is violet wire with white trace. The 16 is the wire gauge.

 

Oh jeez, duh! I should've known that it was violet. Thank you!

So, I guess my only question now is do I basically follow this diagram:



Only instead of wiring it after the headlight switch, I need to wire it after the multifunction switch?

Also, I'm not entirely sure on why that write up requires the use of new harnesses and integrating them in with the existing ones.. couldn't I just wire this up with the harnesses that are in the truck right now and achieve the same thing?

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as dumb or something, I've just never messed with wiring very much besides wiring in after market stereos and speakers.