99 Dodge Ram 1500 Electrical Problem

Tiny
JUSTINRIXFORD16
  • MEMBER
  • 1999 DODGE RAM
  • V8
  • 4WD
  • AUTOMATIC
I'm working on a 1999 Dodge Ram 1500 4X4. I'm working on the headlights I need some diagrams of the electrical in the truck. I work at a vocational school and i'm starting to learn how to fix vehicles. Thanks for helping me out.
Saturday, January 15th, 2011 AT 4:21 PM

3 Replies

Tiny
CARADIODOC
  • MECHANIC
  • 33,908 POSTS
What's the symptom or problem?

In years past they applied 12 volts to the high beams or low beams through the dimmer switch, and the common terminal was grounded. On your truck they are applying 12 volts to the common bulb terminals all the time, then they ground the high or low beam terminals through the dimmer and headlight switches.

Caradiodoc
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Saturday, January 15th, 2011 AT 10:54 PM
Tiny
JUSTINRIXFORD16
  • MEMBER
  • 2 POSTS
The driver side is brighter than passenger side
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Sunday, January 16th, 2011 AT 1:04 PM
Tiny
CARADIODOC
  • MECHANIC
  • 33,908 POSTS
There are two different head lamp systems. There's a two lamp and a four lamp system but I would approach them the same way. Older systems with a common ground had a common problem caused by a bad ground wire. Current would go through the low beam with the bad ground, couldn't get to ground so it would double back through the high beam filament, over to the other high beam, then to ground on the other side of the vehicle. Since the side with the bad ground now has three filaments in series, the bad side is dim and the other side is hard to see that the high beam is on very dim because the low beam is on full brightness and outshines it.

Your system uses a common feed instead of a common ground but I would try using the same approach. That is to unplug the working bulbs, then see if the bad side has new symptoms. In particular, suspect to find the dim bulb is off completely now.

Plug in one bulb at a time and get each one working, then all of them should work properly after that.

Caradiodoc
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Monday, January 17th, 2011 AT 6:14 PM

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