Poss electrical issue:

[llotton]

A friend of a friend of mine with a 2005 quad cab 4x4 Cummins has an issue and asks for help. When driving along from time to time the guages will start to flop around and the engine looses power but does not stop. So far the only cure to this problem this guy has found is to give the dash a good smack then all will return to normal. His dealer could not find any problem yet is still happens from time to time. They suspect a loose ground or connection some where but don't know where to start looking. Any help?

 

[RDeFayette]

All the grounds on a ram have an exposed wire "eye" type end.

They are generally grouped with multiple grounds going to 1 location (multiple locations though).

On the rams if I remember correctly there is 1 under the left side of the dash behind the drivers knee panel and 1 behind the center stack.

 

[cerberusiam]

Big harness connector on the firewall. Has been known to develop bad connections on some of the pins. Sometimes you can unplug it and reseat the plug and it fixes the problem.



The cluster on these trucks are all run off the communication bus and actually a seperate controller that needs to communicate with the ECU or it freaks out. A bad connection on the cluster can cause that or a cluster dying is another possibility.