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When I bought this truck (Late 99 F250 7.3 4x4 crew) the dome light would never come on when I opened the door and the door ajar sensor never showed up on the dash. I also found a relay floating around in the console. Put 2 and 2 together one day and voila, I have a dome light and door ajar sensor again. The relay plugged into Relay #1 slot under the dash and was the only relay it's size so it kind of was a no-brainer. After plugging it in, it never caused me any issues which kind of made me wonder why the PO pulled it.
Fast forward to tonight, I wash the truck when I get home. Afterwards I set the alarm and after a few seconds it starts beeping because all the doors aren't shut. So I walk around the truck and they all are shut. I reopen and close all doors, no help. Tried to figure out exactly what door is setting off the door ajar to no avail. Checked under the dash for water (thinking maybe leaking windshield although unlikely), no luck (which is a good thing, but doesn't answer my question).
I didn't really have more time to mess with it, so I decided i'd pull the relay and figure it out later. Its now that I have an odd realization. I look in the manual to be sure I'm pulling the correct relay as its been a while, and the manual doesn't list any relays as controlling dome light or door ajar. I go from memory and pull relay #1 which kills my door ajar light and dome light (map lights still work). I look down at the owners manual and it labels Relay #1 as "Flasher". I double check to make sure hazards and turn signals work and they do, so I'm not sure what "flasher" the book is talking about or why my door ajar sensor runs through it. The other thing I noticed that was odd was that the relay was really hot. Not like hard to hold in your hand type hot, but was still hot after the 5 minutes I was reading through other things in the manual trying to figure this all out. None of the other relays were hot.
Any ideas, comments? Why is my relay so stinkin hot and why does the door ajar run through a sensor labeled flasher that apparently doesn't control anything that flashes? Contacts melting in the relay maybe?
They pulled it and kept it. I put it back in and used it for quite a while no problem, but I suppose it could be extremely intermittent.
When I got in the truck this morning and began my commute, I realized that the door ajar is actually still activated on the dash, pulling the relay just killed the dome light feature. So the relay is unrelated to my actual problem, but I still find it weird the way it was labeled.
After washing the truck...any water penetration anywhere?
not that I was able to find. Only water issue I’ve ever had was passenger grab handle once had water pouring through. I ended up replacing main weatherstripping on both sides and it never presented again.
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