I've been helping my son with his 2001 Ram 1500 with the 5.2 and manual transmission.
In the process of replacing the top dash pad we realized that a lot plastic parts inside the dash were broken. So we grabbed a dash from the salvage yard from a 1999.

Now we are having issues with lighting. The left turn signal causes the odometer to flash. Turning the high beams on causes the headlights to go out. The right turn signal stays solid and neither one light up the exterior light. After we initially did the swap the only issue was not having high beams. But the symptoms seem to be changing which doesn't make sense since we have not made any changes to the wiring. Although, we did have issues getting the connector to stay in tight.

I'm guessing that it was a mistake to not swap out the wiring harness. My son destroyed the old harness when taking things off the original dash that he wanted to save. It is long gone now.

Can someone give me some guidance on what the best approach is to make this right? Do I need to find another dash from a certain range of years or similar options? Should I try to re-pin the replacement connector to match the original connector?

One last thing. I'm fairly new at reading wiring diagrams. When looking at the connector (C134) pin-out diagram, is it showing me the dash side of the connector or the firewall side of the connector? It looks like it resembles the back side of the dash side of the connector where the wires go in. So I think the diagram is showing the face of the connector on the firewall side. Is that right?

Thanks.

 

Dashes were the same from 99-02. Not sure what all connections you mean but it's acting like it lost ground or something. Did you keep the instrument cluster? Something somewhere must be pinched or a wire is cut. There isn't much going on in these dashes so it should be obvious.

 

You have to look at the picture of the connector, some show the back, some show from the front. You just have to look at the connector and the picture. Sounds like you have a wiring issue.

 

We did keep the original instrument cluster. One thing I notice is that the new connector does not have pin 5 (L3 18RD/OR). The original does with a red/orange stripe wire. Looking at the wiring diagrams, the headlamp beam select switch goes to connector c134 via a RD/OR wire then to the headlamp using the same color. It really looks like I'm missing a wire in the replacement connector. That's not to say I don't think there is a bad ground. There may be more than one thing going on here, but I want to sort the pin 5 issue first.

There are also a couple of pins in the new connector that are not in the old connector. I'm not concerned about those at this point but wanted to call that out.

We're supposed to get 15" of snow today through tomorrow with temps in the teens and single digits through Monday. So it may be while before we dig back into it since we're working in the driveway.

 

Things changed throughout the years, but it still should work, you just may have wires that aren't used. So you are saying you are missing that wire?

 

I don't know yet that the new dash is necessarily missing the RD/OR wire but I'm pretty sure pin 5, which should have a RD/OR wire attached to it, is missing from the replacement connector. It will be a few days before I can get out there and double check.

 

Let us know when you get to look at it

 

It warmed up today so we could get a look at the connector. The first pic is of the original connector. Pin 5 has the RD/OR wire. In the second pic ( replacement connector) pin 5 is missing. And the RD/OR wire is at pin 35. On the original pin 35 has a PK/RD wire. It appears that other than these 2 discrepancies the other wires look ok.

Also, my son was out there looking things over and he noticed that everything was working except the high beams. He then wiggled the blue turn signal/flasher relay and things stopped working again. He pulled the relay and looked it over and there is no corrosion or melting. He put the relay back in and it still doesn't work.



Original connector

Replacement connector

 

That can cause problems, as there is another wire the female side of the connector. As for the relay could be a lose connector or wire

 

Is my best course of action to get another dash/wire harness? Is there an explanation for this? Could it have been a transition year type of thing? Like in 99 they used some left over 98 wiring? I'm dreading this; removing a dash 4 times and installing one 2 times. It may have warmed up a bit but it is certainly not warm out. And the junkyard will be a mess after 18 inches of snow and now it's raining then turning back to snow. Sometimes I wonder why people live in the northeast!