Fishstickz
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2017
- Posts
- 636
- Reaction score
- 357
- Location
- Oklahoma
- Ram Year
- '06, '16
- Engine
- 3.7, 5.7 Hemi
I promise I'll add pictures here pretty soon! Also I should note that power locks are not currently working, I'll update the thread when I get them functional.
To start this off; No, this is probably not worth your time. Unless you have deep connections to your truck (or really enjoy not having a hefty truck payment) you'd be better off buying a new truck. If you DO decide to go through with this, watch youtube videos. There's numerous videos explaining how to replace some of these things, and they'll help out a whole lot.
I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY for this info messing your truck up. I really hope you don't, but don't blame me if you do. Go into this with a little common sense, research, and patience, and you'll do just fine
Anyways, here's what you're gonna need. I have a 2006 2-door. Part numbers are gonna be different for yours.
To start this off; No, this is probably not worth your time. Unless you have deep connections to your truck (or really enjoy not having a hefty truck payment) you'd be better off buying a new truck. If you DO decide to go through with this, watch youtube videos. There's numerous videos explaining how to replace some of these things, and they'll help out a whole lot.
I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY for this info messing your truck up. I really hope you don't, but don't blame me if you do. Go into this with a little common sense, research, and patience, and you'll do just fine
Anyways, here's what you're gonna need. I have a 2006 2-door. Part numbers are gonna be different for yours.
- Dash Wiring Harness- 56051353AD. Any harness that has the sales code [JPB] will work. If you check your dash wiring harness, you may be lucky and already have one that'll work. Ya never know
- Body Wiring Harness- 56051373AB or better. Best way to check if your harness has all the wires already is to open the front door and pop out the door wiring boot. There's either 1 white connector and 1 black connector or just 1 white connector. If you only see the white one, you'll have to get the new body wiring harness.
- Headlamp-to-Dash Harness. 56051337AD or better. The part number will change wildly depending on your engine, 2-dr or 4-dr ABS, etc. I personally didn't buy this one.
- Door Harness- 56051691AA and 56051692AA. You'll also have to get the rear door harnesses for 4 door models.
- Window Switches and Bezels
- Door Panels
- Door Lock Actuators
- Power window motors
- Instrument Cluster (Possibly???)
- PATIENCE AND TIME
- The first thing you'll wanna do is take out a few things to prepare taking out the dash. Radio bezel, A-pillar trim, kick panel trim, and instrument cluster especially. Disconnect the HVAC switch, airbag switch, 4WD switch, power sliding backlite switch, etc. Everything with wires attached needs to be disconnected, except for the radio. It can stay. I also removed the passenger side seat to help slide the dash out a bit easier, but it's probably not required to get it out. Just slide it back as far as it can go. Drop the steering column or remove it. I didn't remove it but it probably would've made things a little easier if I did. Disconnect as many wires as you can see and then some. You'll probably disconnect at least a dozen connectors at this point. The ABS module will either be under the radio or under the center jumpseat. Idk why but just be sure you unplug it.
- Now you'll wanna take out the dash entirely. This was my first time removing the dash, but overall wasn't too hard and took me about 3 1/2 hours to have it fully removed. You'll definitely want help taking it out of the truck. Place it face-down on a bunch of towels or something soft so you don't scratch it up. You should be able to see all the HVAC tubes, wire harness, airbag, and other dusty stuff. You'll probably want to clean and freshen up both the back side of the dash and the HVAC box in the truck.
- Now you should be able to remove the dash harness. Its held down by a few screws, ground bolts, and connections. You'll also have to remove one piece of the HVAC system, which is only held down by one or two screws. At this point just remove the old wire harness and put the new one in. Any connections you unplugged during this step, be sure to plug them back in now
- Now you can move back into the truck to work on the body harness. First, if you didn't remove the steering column, you'll have to put it back up. The mounting bracket is still there, just lift it up and twist the nuts on there a bit to hold it up there. Then you'll have to remove almost everything left in the truck- all B-pillar trim, standard cab storage bin, all seats, speakers, etc. Removing the carpet helps a bunch too.
- You'll need to disconnect just about everything now. Connectors in the door boots, speakers, seatbelt tensioners, another ABS wire, etc. Then it'll be held down by a bunch of fir tree zip ties and a couple of screws in the door sills.
Now you can reinstall the new one in reverse order. - CLEAN EVERYTHING! You'll thank yourself later. After you get done cleaning everything up, check all your connections, then reinstall the carpet, seats, B-pillar trim, speakers, etc.
- So now would be a good time to replace the headlamp-to-dash harness. I personally didn't do this, as I just ran the power window feed from the TIPM to the power window wire myself. With that said I really can't guide anyone on how to go about doing it. It was a cheap shortcut solution, but it was around this point I got tired of spending money on wire harnesses lol. I may end up replacing that harness in the future anyways.
- So now everything should be all wired up within the cab. You can now reinstall the dash, reconnect all the wires, reinstall the seats, trim panels, etc. I must note to be careful about the brake light indicator module thingy. I accidentally bent mine but luckily I had an extra from my old wire harness.
- Reconnect the battery. Pray hard before the next step.
- Start er' up and be thankful the son of a gun started. Now you can move onto the important things- the doors.
- You'll wanna start by taking the drivers side door panel off and disconnect the connectors in the door wire boot. Just a few screws and a torx bit for the door panel. Once thats off, remove the door handle mechanism and speaker, then peel away the moisture plastic cover..thing
- You'll wanna look on the back side of the door and you'll see 4 torx bolts, 3 hold the door actuator in and 1 lower torx holds the rear window track in place. You'll want to loosen the top 3 and remove the bottom one, then move the window track up and out of the way. DEFINITELY don't roll your window down!!
- You'll have to reach in there and disconnect the 4 snappy things that hold the door actuator to the different components. Once thats done, take out the 3 torx bolts, pull the actuator out, disconnect the wires, and throw that disgusting sucker away. From this point on DONT try to shut your door!!
- Now you'll wanna work on getting the wire harness out. Remove the bottom bolt from the FRONT window track and stash it out of the way. Next remove all of those fir tree ziptie holders, and work the wire harness out of the door.
- Get your new wire harness out and get to installing it. For the most part it's the reverse of taking it out, but be sure and connect the new door lock actuator and screw it into position before finishing up.
- With the wiring harness installed, you'll wanna put those window tracks back into position and tighten them down. At this point you can plug in the power window switch and it should light up when you turn the key. Play with the window switch a bit and if it works, great! Give yourself a pat on the back. Note that power locks probably won't work for you just yet.
- Finally you can work on the window regulators. First, you'll have to roll the window down a bit to get access to the bolts holding the window to the regulator. Loosen these just a tad, then roll it back up. Then you'll wanna tape the window up to the top of the door. Definitely be careful with the door so you don't knock the tape loose (ask me how I know)
- Now slide the window regulator to the right a bit, then you can remove it from the window. Loosen the 4 bolts holding the window regulator on, and pull it on out of the door with the big hole in the bottom of the door. (Its difficult I know)
- Now you'll slide the new power window regulator in and bolt it into the same place. You can reuse the bolts that came off the old manual crank regulator. These regulators can be very confusing to work with and reinstall properly, so I'd suggest watching some youtube videos of the install.
- Once you get them in, you'll wanna turn the key and CAREFULLY roll the window up. Get the window regulator lined up to reinstall the window to the regulator. Tighten the nut, remove the tape, and enjoy your beautiful work.
- After you love your work, reinstall everything, and put the new door panel on in place of the old manual door panel. Pop the new switch in and you're good to go!.
- Now you'll wanna repeat steps 11-21 on the passenger side, and on your back two doors if you're working with a crew cab (I can't confirm accuracy on the rear panels tho)
- After its all set and done, you should have all the fancy fixin's for power windows!
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