My brothers 96 baked the headlight switch(loose blade on the switch) a few months ago. Melted the mating plug, but not too bad. I also made sure I cleaned inside the offending recepital too.

Last night he was out and starting to smell it and could feel the dash getting warmmer. He brought it home, pulled the dash and switch. Now I looked at the switch and most people would miss it but I could see deposit of something on the blade, no discoloration at all. It has to be the plug side making poor contact causing this problem.

Has this happened to anyone and if so what the easiest/best solution.
Thanks

 

It happened to me on my 95 when I was on a trip. There is a headlight relay kit you can get from summit racing to fix the problem. Right now all the power goes thru the switch and overheats it. The relay kit just lets the switch turn the relay on and off and you can then run full voltage thru the relay to your headlights. Get a new headlight switch plug if you havn't already. Good Luck with it.

 

Just a little input to your problem but might not help, just my "two cents". On recalls for the 95 Trucks {maybe other years too},they have a recall on the ignition switch. I believe that if the heater fan is run at high for a long time the ignition switch will get hot and melt or be damaged. Maybe this is related to your head light switch problem. Just a suggestion. --Ray

 

I had the headlight swich go on mine about 1 year ago, easy fix $25-$30 at napa.

when mine went the smell was awfull! and i had to drive home in the dark with my hand pulling out on the switch to see and the window down from the smell. what is that stuff in there that stinks? dielectric grease?

you'll probably have to replace the plug too.

maybe a junkyard!

 

I too had the headlite switch heat up and melt the socket . There is a tsb on these switches,all the dealer needs is your vin number to check it. I have a 94 and dealer checked but sorry my truck dident qualify for the fix from dodge. The dealer price to fix it was outragous,something like a whole wiring set up or something, just the plug was not available. So I fixed by cutting the wires, stripping them and using spade lug connectors to the new switch and has been good so far. When dash lites are dimmed the switch gets hot so better to keep them on bright. By the way I pull a gn horse trailer with about 25 lights on it that I think was maybe going through the headlite switch but now goes from a seprate switch of its own. Hope this helps your problem.

 

The switch is brand new, btw the awful smell is from the bakelite used in molding the switch. Fortunatly the plug is not completely screwed up. I can still use it the way it is, but I'm going to put relays into the circuit to eliminate the current draw through that part of the plug.
I'm going to use 2 relays and put them into the 2 wires coming from the high/low beam switch. And wire it so that the low beams are on with the high beams also.

 

Do yourself a favor before you start anything and go to the search function of this site. Search for "headlight switch", there is a lot of reading and a solution to the switch problems. Relays are what you need to shed load off the switch, you are on the right track!