I have had 2 of my dodge 3500 Cab & Chassis fuse box burn up and melt and the guy i use for diesel work said this is very common for these dodge trucks. He said running all the lights on big trailers will cause it but both of these trucks seldom pull a trailer they are 12' stake beds. I just wanted to know if anybody else has seen this.

Furchaser i was wondering if you hace seen any of this where you are , and i know you do a lot of diesel work.

 

Charles I did have one that was melting down a year ago or so ( but didn't catch fire ) because it was covered in running lights that I switched over to LED to lower the draw on the system.
If it were me and I was trying to solve the problem I would put any high load 12v circuits on there own breaker / relay off direct battery power and remove them from the box and use the old wiring to trigger the relay.
I honestly don't think much of the wiring ( distribution box ) in the new Dodge .. they are pretty light duty for what is expected from them ... jmo

 

Hell this thing only has 8 small running lights on the bed thats it and they are not on during the day time which is when this has happened.

 

I have a 96 2500 V10 I have not had that problem my car trailer has 8 lights on it,All my brothers have dodge trucks that pull trailers,UMMM this might be something to watch out for though!

 

And where are they grounded ?

 

I have seen strange things happen when there isn't a good ground.

 

A beds are put on by the people that make the beds, probably grounded to the bed but the bed is welded to the frame.

 

The biggest thing to watch for in the diesels are the pos cable that runs in between the batteries. If the connections get corroded the alternator puts power into the right battery and the voltage regulator is off the left battery, it will put way to much voltatge to system and cook your battery and melt electrical system

 

Fucking weird , I read this last night and go out today and my truck won't start , Battery's charged then but didn't work , remembered this and cleaned the cross over cable and charged them and good as new.