Battery Drain Fuse 51 - What should the AMPS be?

First post here hope you guys can help me out.

I have an 02 RAM 1500, about this time of year every year I have what I consider an expensive or major problem. This year its battery drain.

Two Monday's ago I got in the truck and it just wouldn't start. The battery was dead, I had a faulty light switch so I chalked it up to bumping and the lights coming on when I got out of the truck. Ordered a switch picked up a new battery, put it in the truck last week, and on my merry way I went.

The truck ran fine with no indicators of any issues, last Saturday, I went to start the truck however it was a little slow to crank. I drove it about 15 miles to work, and then another mile to deliver mail and packages to the apartment complex I do mail delivery for.

The battery was once again dead. Something had drained me out completely Saturday during my drive.

Getting it back home, I determined Fuse 51 was drawing 2.09 amps. I did this by removing the negative battery terminal and connecting a multi meter to the negative terminal.

Fuse 51 is the IOD Fuse, for those of you who don't know (very few I am sure) it is the fuse the dealer pushes in once the vehicle has entered their lot.

So far I took out the aftermarket XM radio, removed the radio. The next step is the cluster. I thought I'd ask you guys to find out if you had any ideas before I went to that extreme.

Does anyone know what the amps could be of a resting vehicle?

Normal parasitic drain on a vehicle is around 25 to 50 milliamps (.025-.050 amps). How long did you wait after connecting your multimeter inline with your battery cable? Sometimes it takes up to 30 minutes for the computers to fully go to sleep. In this case you would have to connect the multimeter and then wait 30 minutes and see what the reading is. Either way 2.09 amps is a massive amount to be pulling when the vehicle is off.

The fact that it would run, then not re start makes me think you may have a charging issue.

Thanks for that info Justin, I only checked right away. Never waited for it to go 100% to sleep. After some digging around and pulling stuff out, I determined 1 amp was coming from the underhood light. After disconnecting that, it dropped down to 1.09. It was father's day so I took out IOD fuse and let the truck sit no battery drain at all. So, tonight I've pulled the cluster.

I pulled each connector one at a time. The 1.09 stuck until I got to the white connector. As soon as I pulled it the draw dropped to .15, which according to what you are telling me could be a little high still, and could also possibly be the computer still not 100% "asleep".

I also tried connecting the two grey connectors to the cluster and made sure I had no change in the .15 amp draw. I did not. SO my question now does anyone know what the white connector on the back of the instrument cluster controls? Is it just the lights, is it something else entirely? I have single light that seems to be blown out so if I could just buy that instead of spending 500 on a new cluster that would be awesome.

Again thank you for your help. Hopefully someone else can help as well.



Here's a picture of the cluster back the white connector on the right is what I am talking about.

EDIT: Justin, I was thinking the same thing, I had the battery, starter, and alternator tested last week, from what I was told all is well.

Alright fellas (and ladies) I've gone to the junk yard, and found an instrument cluster that matches my truck. However, the cluster I pulled is from a 4.7 Magnum and my truck is a 5.9. I was looking on line at possibly needing to have the cluster flashed to match my truck. Does anyone know any information on this?