I had an experience yesterday with my wife's 2000 Dodge Dakota which made me think maybe I should learn how to care for the old and likely brittle multi-pin connectors in the 7.3L.

Should I leave them alone until there is a problem? Or should I take them apart, check for burnt pins, spray some type of cleaner in there? And then put them back together? Or put on some type of contact enhancer like Stabilant22a or DeoxIT Gold? *

Suggestions would be appreciated.

So, my wife's 2000 Dodge Dakota 4x4 SLT with the 4.7L gas v8 is about the same vintage as our trucks. Yesterday, it would turn over briskly but wouldn't fire up after leaving the grocery store. There was an engine icon on the instrument panel and the ODOMETER WAS FLASHING "no bu5" I.e., "NO CAN BUS" **

I found what had to be the PCM on the passenger side fender and called my contact at the Dodge parts counter and he looked up that "no bu5" is generally caused by a poor ground at the PCM. So I wiggled the three PCM connectors and it started! Then I drove until it died and repeated the wiggle once more and my wife and I made it home!

So, with the assumption that something like this could also happen to our 7.3L PSD's, if you electrical gurus have any general suggestions for maintaining the health of our PCM connectors and other multi-pin electrical connectors as they get older and brittle, I would appreciate it.


* This thread is a little more specific and is directed to actual proactive maintenance of our multi-pin electrical connectors than my recent and unfortunately prescient Contact Enhancer vs Di-Electric Grease vs ? thread.

** I have used the Dodge's odometer code reader in the past to find a broken throttle position sensor, a failed rear abs sensor, and O2 sensor codes. It's a pretty cool feature that I wish Ford would adopt. You just turn the key from off to on three times and it cycles through displaying any codes on the odometer. Do it a fourth time and it clears the codes.

 

I don't see an issue with looking over the main ones, such as PCM, IDM, and the injector harness. Get a can of electric QD cleaner and you can clean all of your connections with that. I've read a lot of good things about contact enhancer, but I've never used it myself. I do however, use a small amount of di-electric grease around the plug to help seal them off and keep water and other contamination out. Other than the UCVH, wires chaffing seems to be a more common problem than bad pins.

 

I do this as I go. I had some PCM work not long ago, so the connector got some attention. My 42-pin seems to have gotten regular service the last two years, and every sensor I replaced got the treatment. My IDM is next in line. I would much rather do it this time of year than when I have to see through my breath to work on the truck.

 

That dodge probably needs a new PCM, they commonly fail for that issue. I think they have bad solder joints or something.

Most people don't realize that when you disconnect and reconnect a connector it actually stresses the pins. GM says you can only disconnect a late model ECM 2-3 times before the pins should be replaced. I believe it is Bugatti that requires pins to be replaced any time they are disconnected. Luckily our trucks aren't THAT picky and at their age, some Stabilant 22 would not be a bad thing.