Electrical weirdness....

[RWlRAM]

Long time lurker with just a few posts over the years starting back
when I had my '94 4X4 SLT.
View attachment 519100
Anyway my used '04 has been giving me fits now and then.
For quite some time I kept getting a "Lamp Out" light which
had me running around looking for what ever it was.
Somehow, by magic I swear, it seems to have been fixed.

The latest is last week I was headed to the store.
When I got in the truck I noticed the dome light wasn't on.
Hit the key and absolutely nothing but a very very faint buzzing
sound when I turned off the key.

Looking at the dash I see a very faint red light that goes out when
the key is turned on and back on when it's off and buzzes.
I have never seen this light since I got the truck in '17.

So I get out my charger, hook it up wait a few minutes and now I have
dash lights but not even any solenoid clicks so I leave things sit.
Got back and hit the 50 amp jump on the charger and still nothing.

Wait for an hour and this time the 50 gets things going and move
truck to the garage area to set the charger for another few hours.

End of the night I disconnect charger and truck starts right up like normal.
Has worked perfectly for over a week now.

I had to look in my Owners manual to see what that red light was and the only thing it says is that it's supposed to blink for 16 seconds when the vehicle is armed.

I've never seen it do anything.
My '18 Grand Cherokee has this light and does blink when locked.

Checked the '04 Service Manual and see it's supposed to be tied to a SKIM.
Reading the description of where that parts are I think this may have been removed from the truck by previous owner as I found an odd connector while fixing my turnsignal switch when I first got the truck.

The problem with that info is that there is nothing on the build sheet related to any security system other than the keyless entry.

Anyone take a guess why the battery would just randomly die but work perfectly later.

Suggestions on what tripped this red light after 6 years.

Thanks guys!
RW

 

[Ole Buck]

I have an 04 and it did the same thing with the lamp out light. Mine is very sensitive to voltage/amperage. I had some corrosion under my positive battery terminal that I could not see. I cleaned it up and it went away. The next time was when I changed over to led bulbs. Even though everyone of them was on I still had a lamp out light due to them not drawing the same amps/volts as my factory bulbs. My first guess would be that its your terminals and that you jiggled them around when you were hooking and unhooking your battery charger.

And then again I may be absolutely wrong which pretty sums up my entire adult life.

Al Bundy.

 

[RWlRAM]

Thanks for your reply.
It's amazing that after well over 100 years of making cars etc. these companies can't seem to get things right when they hit the market.
I was talking to a mechanic friend to day and he said that the automobile industry has followed the TV and appliance industry into making car, trucks etc, a disposable product and a very expensive one at that.

 

[RWlRAM]

Well I had another "Lamp Out" and found my passenger side low beam not working.
So my son happened to be home and was helping out swapping the light bulb......more nimble fingers.
Got the new bulb in and nothing......
We fiddled around looking for bad fuses, loose connections etc.
He looked online and found a post about similar headlight, "Lamp Out" problem.
The result for that person was the FCM wasn't making good contacts and pressure was tweaking the pins.
I happened to have a couple extra FEM's and swapped one.
Son of a gun if everything didn't work again.
If I get any more "Lamp Out" indicators that will be the first place I'll check.