Search the Community

I know several people have asked about grid heater times and when it starts... Well here you go... GRID HEATERS Above 59*F ........................ 0 Seconds ............................ No Post Heating 15*F to 59*F ...................... 10 Seconds .......................... Post Heating 0*F to 15*F ........................ 15 Seconds ......................... Post Heating Below 0*F ........................... 30 Seconds ......................... Post Heating Remember block heaters tend to offset the intake air temp so be aware that block heater will do this. Also be aware that there is 2 grid heaters and during the pre-heating both elements are used during the post heating it might be 1 or 2 depending on temp at the IAT. Now each grid heater is 95 AMPs a piece for a total of 190 AMPs total draw so this is why is so critical that your batteries are strong in the winter time!

Alright heres a video of my truck. Now here's what I want to find out. If you notice, the voltage is 11.7 while it runs initially, then whatever that something is lets up and shows the grid heater only drawing it to 12.2, then it lets off and 14v is seen. So what is the initial thing that draws it down to 11.7? Does the grid heater have 2 power levels?

does anyone have a grid heater and the harness off of it? Mine was burnt up when i bought it. thanks

Hi guys, got the new grid heater battery jumper wire set I had ordered. I put it on, tried it and fried it in 5 seconds- bye bye $40. Anyway, I just followed the troubleshooting instructions here after this disaster: http://dodgeram.org/tech/dsl/troubleshooting/Maniford_htr.htm I have .1 or 0 Ohms (depending on the multimeter setting) across the heater grid terminals as stated in the 2002 instructions. But it seems like you wouldn't want 0 if going from the grid terminals to ground as that would in indicate a direct short to ground. If I jump the grid straight to the battery its like a welder. Anyone have any issues with this before? I took the intake horn off just to check if something was sitting on the grid and it's clear. Im not sure what could be grounding out. I also checked the heavy relay to grid wires and they are fine. I'm out of ideas and its 10F today and high of 1 and 3 F this week. Thanks

Sunday morning the ole girl was deader than a door nail. No juice. :think:Had to go to my fiance and my wedding shower so I couldn't work on er till about 1800 last night. I threw a charger on it, not even 30 seconds later she fired up and ran like a champ. I took er up the street to make sure everything worked out all right, no issues. Went out this morning dead again. :doh:SO I threw the charger on it and it started with no issue in less than 30 seconds. Got er to work, Dead by Lunch. :banghead: SO now I'm thinking bad battery(ies), I load test them, both are weak but not BAD yet. SO I start looking, I find the wires going to the Grid Heater relay corroded to high heaven and making smoke with the battery charger on it, so I take em off only to find out they are some fuseable link also. I clean up my battery terminals and cables, leave the grid heater cables off. Charge it up and it starts great. Then is surged twice, and stalled. Now it will not start at all. :mad:Cranks great, dies quick. No Codes showing. Any ideas of what is going on? DO those heater grid cables ned to be in place? Any one seen this before? :shrug:Just went over and tried to start er again. She fired after about 15 seconds then stumbled and died.

Ill start from the beginning...About a year ago driving one day i noticed my check gauge lite come on and the volt meter was dead. Truck still running, i shut down and restarted no issues and it was gone. I figured it to be a dirty connection to the battery. It went away for about a year.6 months ago it happened again, same thing, shut down restart and went away...3 months ago yet again. this time i left it running and i checked with my volt meter as i was close to home and found it to be at ~12v at the battery. i figured it to be the alternator on its way out. I shut down and restarted and it was still at 12v but then jumped back to its normal ~14vthis past saturday it did it again, but i caught it before the check engine light came on. the volt gauge read ~12v. then dropped dead and check gauge light came on. I did a restart while coasting and it stayed the same so i headed home fast.pulled into the driveway, left it running got the volmeter out. I started checking this and that, and figured the alternator was toast as the voltage was not picking up and actually was dropping very very slowly.I shut the truck off and got a call, while talking i noticed a poof of faint smoke and freaked! the keys were out, nothing turned on and the damn grid heater was still running!!!!!!!!!!I pulled the leadds off the battery real fast and started troubleshooting. The intake horn was so damn hot i couldnt touch it and would have severely burned my hand. (cook bacon on it hot!)Well i disconnected the leads to the heater once it cooled and hooked the batteries back up. I checked for voltage on each lead and one was hot! So i traced them to the solenoids that sit on the DS wheel well and removed them. Long story short i had to rebuild the little buggers and found 2 issues.The solenoid that was providing voltage to the heater even when truck was off had the return spring on the bottom side of the contactor plate was very weak and wasnt springing back, basically it was leaving the solenoid closed curcuit and that is bad. I streched the spring and cleaned the contacts and everything, reassembled. its actually fairly easy to rebuild.the other solenoid was in worse condition. it got hot somehow long long ago and the shaft that the coil pushed on was bent and basically locked the thing open. It hasnt worked in a long time. It took a couple hours to rebuild that, with some injenuity and imagination i was able to get it to work.now the truck cycles the heat grid much better, no more check gauge lights so far and the heat cycles once started are very short. half of the heater grid has been dead for a long time, but now its working good! I think the alternator sensed a extreme power drain and basically shut down sorta like a self protect curcuit as the volt meter in the cluster would drop to nothing and i was watching the batteries drain while this all happened.Heater grid was fine, the solenoids were worn and old. i will look into new replacements off a junker or something.

My cel came on an I have code P0382! What is this code?

well..the truck is grid heater deleted...a FBD grid heater delete was installed.....and a black power coated ats arc flow intake.....i got a block heater and a high/3cyl. box ..so no problems.i like it so far.:thumbup2::thumbup2::thumbup2::thumbup2:

Finally got that damn thing from sucking down my main batteries. I had a good deep cycle laying around so I threw it in (yeah so I have 5 batteries now ) and took the grid heater positive wire and wired it directly to the deep cycle. I put a relay in and hooked it up so that when it is normally closed (not energized) it closes the path of the positive from the main batteries to a wire for the deep cycle positive, that way it will charge any time the grid heater is not on. When the grid heater turns on, it also energizes the relay and opens the charging path so that the battery is connected to the grids and nothing else. After the grids turn off, the relay turns off and it is back to charging the battery. The alternator has a greatly reduced load on it and your lights won't dim or any of that crap. My wires are not as big as they should be so that is why it takes a little bit for the deep cycle to match the main batteries. In the picture, the 2 black wires are the charging wires (from a main battery positive going to the deep cylce positive) the yellow goes to the grid heater to energize the coil, and the blue wire is the negative for the coil. The contacts were a little too close for my liking, thats why I padded all the wires with electrical tape. The little grid heater wires actually didn't have the power to turn the relay on. I kept thinking something was messed up but it just didn't work no matter what. Not really an issue, I just hooked it up to the actual grid heater wire instead (the big ones, on the side that gets switch on and off). So that worked perfect. You can hear the relay switching in the video, pretty neat how it is all automatic like that. Now I don't have to worry about the batteries or alternator and still have the other switch to turn the grids completely off if I want to. http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=osqm0T6JeBQ

been out hunting this week. i noticed at least twice, when the air temp was in the mid 50s and my truck had been sitting for at least 10hrs(and unplugged), my grid heaters didn't kick on(wait to start, idle, or, low speed driving). someone suggested that there might be a fuse link in the wire from the battery to the relays, but both had voltage thru the wire when i checked it with a DVOM. what should i check next? or am i jumping the gun, and its not cold enough for the ecm to start the grids? ISX does the 12v PCM run the grids? didn't you wire a switch for those?

Ok I don't know why! Why would you want to turn off the grid heater in the manifold. I see people posting about it!

My manual states that the intake air grid heaters will cycle on and off for approximately 3 minutes if the intake air temp is below 60 degrees F. However, I can't seem to find the durtion of the on cycle anywhere. Mine stay on for about 3 to 4 seconds, then off for about 15 to 20 seconds. Just curious if this is the correct cyclic timing sequence.PRG, 2002, Ram 2500, 5.9 CTD, 4 WD, Extended Cab, 8" Bed, Quadzilla XZT+, Quadzilla Monster Air Intake, Quadzilla Recon Gage, Okanogan Highlands, WA.