Hello,
Yesterday we picked up a new-to-us trailer. Within about 1 mile the truck dash lights starting flickering and the truck died within a few seconds. The engine would turn over but wouldn't start.

Truck is a 2003 Dodge Ram 1500 5.7L

We towed the truck and trailer home, got the truck on a lift and could see that starting from the trailer electric hook up wires were fried all the way up to the connection on the driver side just behind the front tire. This harness feeds the fuel pump, the rear lights, the trailer, etc.

Wires are melted all the way along. I figured it would be easier just to get a whole new harness that try to trace every wire for where it needs to be replaced or wrapped.

We are in a situation where we need the truck up and running fast...we were supposed to use it this weekend related to some harvesting we are doing on our farm.

Our local dealer said the part (WIRING-CHASSIS Part#: 56051257AA) is discontinued and last known price was about $1000. I nearly passed out. I have found some online for around $600 before shipping (we are in Canada). Which is still pretty ridiculous.

Apparently the wiring is specific to the 2003 model and is not interchangeable with others. Is this really true.

Any thoughts on the following would be greatly appreciated:
1- Which online Dodge parts dealers in the North East US are considered OK.
2- Anyone know that we could use wiring from a different model?
3- Maybe rewiring wire by wire is the best solution....the situation is extremely frustrating and could easily be clouding our judgement!

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

http://car-part.com/

Try these guys for a used harness, and most like fcm (front control module)(control computer).

 

Thanks very much Gone Fishin
Do you know if there is a way to tell if the FCM is fried prior to repairing the rear wiring? I am trying to determine if I need to get both parts right away.
Thank again.

 

About the only way I can think of to truly know would be to take the truck to a dealer or shop that has a starscan tool to verify the computer. You might be money ahead just to get another one. I hope you get it worked out without a lot of ghosts.

 

You may want to look into an automotive electrical repair shop. They can repair the wiring harness back to oe specs. Sometimes it cheaper than a harness replacement.

 

Good to know---I hope the OP comes back and sees this

 

Me too its nice when we get replies back, and what the fix was.

 

Hi folks,
I did look into the car-part.com listings. It looked like there were a few matches around the $400 price but the issue was time to get the part. We are working against the clock.
However, what I didn't know is that my mechanic came back from his weekend camping trip early and started working on our truck over the weekend. (Need to give him a case of beer when this is all said and done) So on Monday morning he called to say he had found a used 2003 wiring harness somewhere locally for $175 and was ready to start putting it in. The job should be finished this morning AM (unfortunately, the end towing connectors had already been taken by someone else so the "new" wiring harness needed a little work). Yet to see if the FCM has been damaged.

He gave me the old wiring harness to have a look (there is still the option of trying to recover some of our costs from the business who sold us the trailer) and we both could see a lot of recent damage that seems to be centered along the ground wire (black). However, there also appears to be some old (dirty rusted) damage on the ground wire in other places. Perhaps the trailer was not entirely to blame after all...TBD.

My mechanic will be looking at the trailer wiring today.

On a side note, while our truck was on the lift, another neighbour who is a firefighter stopped in. His dept covers a pretty big stretch of a major highway and he was kind (sarcasm) enough to detail lots of truck fires that he has been called to that have to do with wiring. Considering we had the two kids strapped into their car seats when all this happened freaked me out to say the least. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise that this happened the way it did....

 

Update
My mechanic just called to say that all is good and ready to go!

He did find an issue with the trailer wiring. The live/AUX line (usually red or black) on the 7 pin hitch connector on the trailer side was grounded. (this wire and the ground wire were both grounded) He supposed that if the trailer was used with vehicles where this line wasn't live (he said lots are not) there would have been no problem. But in our case we are sending power through it so we had a problem pretty fast.

I guess it meant that a circuit was being created and we had power coming back to the truck through the ground...I guess....my interpretation based on my limited understanding of electrical circuits.

Now to see if we can get any money from the business that sold us the trailer....

 

Good to hear you got it going, might want to give that mechanic a case of beer and a bottle of captain morgans------he pulled this one out of his *** for ya