1957 Chevy 3100, meet 1994 Dodge Ram 1500

[Purcell69]

After a bit of research and lots of trouble shooting, I found out where the yellow wire with the red tracer came from. It had not pulled out of the 84-way connector, but rather a loop that is installed in a non-manual transmission application, since there is no need for a clutch safety switch. While I was trouble shooting, I put 12v to the yellow and red wire, only to have the starter engage. A bit more digging and I found the green plug body that the wire had pulled out of, pin and all.

Once this was done, I found the engine would crank but not fire off. The fuel pump wasn't spinning. It seems the wire code between 1994 and 1996 had changed, so my plan to splice the wires to the rear half of the frame (twelve wires to ten) was a fail. More digging got me to 12v keyed power for the fuel pump, but it still would not start. The Automatic Shut Down relay was tripping, killing the ignition...no spark.

I got access to the 1996 FSM for a Dodge Dakota and figured the schematics were pretty close. There was also a section addressing the ASD which had some good info on troubleshooting ASD issues. In spite of being 109* outside with 20% humidity, I couldn't resist finding the problem. After checking all the fuses, I found there was one missing from the main fuse panel. Also, it is not uncommon to have issues if the PCM isn't properly grounded, so I cleaned the aluminum body of the PCM and installed a dedicated ground lead to the chassis, rather than just relying on the mounting bolts to do the job.

With all of this now done, the truck fired right up! I still have more clean-up to do, including ditching the factory headlamp switch in favor of one that looks "correct" in the Chevy dashboard. At least I am now back to a running truck.

-Joe