I have a 1999 dodge ram van 1500 conversion that I have slowly learning to repair myself. I have had trouble with the van not starting, and struggling to keep going after starting after it was jumped unless I had my foot on the gas continuously. It has done this for some time Today I inspected the starter relay after trying to start it with no success, since that relay was very hot to the touch and had some very minor discoloration on one pin. After I changed it out, it started right up.

I drove it around for a while to charge it up, and while it drove fine on its own without AC/radio/etc on, once I tried to plug in my aftermarket backup mirror into the cigarette lighter, it tried to die so I unplugged it. After I stopped driving around I touched all the relays again, and all the relays except the new one was hot to the touch. I am guessing that is bad. To clarify, when I say hot, I mean hot and not warm.

Should I replace all the relays? They are original to the van and it has 219k on it. Every single one of them has a tiny bit of discoloration on the same pin. Does it matter what brand I get, or is the Standard brand from oreilly's ok?

If if helps, here is my fuse box (pic taken before I replaced the relay and the alternator fuse):

 

How is your charging system? If plugging a low-load device into the electrical causes issues, I would be REAL curious what alternator output looks like under various conditions.

The PCM is VERY sensitive to voltage changes. It expects at least 12.5 volts, and if it doesn't get that, then nothing else works right either.

 

Well, I am still learning how multimeters work so I haven't got that far yet. But just now I changed ALL the relays in the fuse box, and it started right up. I turned on the blower and the radio, and it continued to run. I drove it around a bit, and then I parked and plugged in the backup camera, still ran. Drove home with no issues. So maybe it is fixed now. Time will tell. If it acts up again that will be my next task - thank you for the tip.

I didn't mention I just replaced the headlight switch the other day because it wouldn't stay connected consistently, and I has also just replaced the alternator fuse, so maybe that was a contributing factor too. Or maybe she just wanted attention. Who knows.

 

That wouldn't surprise me a bit.

Replacing the alternator fuse may have fixed a variety of woes.