'05 KJ, BCM Removal Magical Tricks??

[kb0nly]

My oldest son has an 05 KJ thats been acting all sorts of weird and i am trying to replace the BCM on it, but for the life of me after hours of trying the only way i can see to get the PIA out is to go caveman on it with a sawzall and start cutting the dash out. How in the world are you supposed to get the fuse box down and out to replace the BCM module on it??

I removed all the cables connected to it, unscrewed it, loosened up harnesses, removed the knee pad from the dash, the underside panel, cleared out everything that can be loosened, shoved aside, unbolted, you name it, there is still not enough room without maybe taking out the steering column as well because the large bracket thats part of the steering column support has this big ear off it to the left side that the fuse box hits. I get about a 1/2" of wiggle room to move it inward from its mounting location and thats not enough to clear anything below it to pull it out. So after three hours fighting it i gave up put it back together and walked away.

As for the back story, here is the issues, the darn thing thinks there is a door open all the time, says DOOR on the odometer display. If you open the glass it says GLASS, if you open the rear door it says GATE, but his unlike my 03 says DOOR for all four doors, my 03 will say drivers, passengers, rear drivers, etc. I thought it must have been a door ajar switch on one of the doors, so i checked all four doors, traced out all the wiring and unplugged the connectors from the BCM and i can probe the four door wires at the BCM and any of the ground pins or just to a body ground and open and close all four doors and see they are switching, so its not the doors ajar switch in any of them causing it. Also the wiring all checks out with continuity checks from the inside of each door to the BCM plug.

According to the service manual when the door is open the door ajar switch closes the circuit to ground, and indeed thats what all four doors do, but since opening the door is what closes the circuit then removing the connection to the door ajar switches would fool the BCM to thinking all four doors are closed even if they aren't. So i removed the four door wires from the BCM plug as a last ditch effort knowing it wouldn't make any difference and plugged it back in, and sure enough it proved my troubleshooting because even with the door ajar switch wires disconnected from the BCM it still thinks a door is open, but since his just says DOOR i don't have anything else to go on.

That just leaves the BCM as being the problem, so i was going to pull the BCM and have a look at it and then replace it. I know on some other Dodge vehicles that members of the family have owned over the years that i was able to repair BCM problems, usually just a bad FET or blown resistor on the PCB. But i cannot for the life of me get that dang BCM out of the vehicle!!

The service manual description says to remove the three screws, and the lower panel and drop it out the bottom.... Fat chance, you couldn't fit something half its size out the bottom. So what am i missing here?

 

[tommudd]

My 05 tells me which door exactly is open, just doesn't say " door"
As far as getting it out, have had other years out , but never the 05s, not sure what the difference would be at all
But will look later today

 

[kb0nly]

His has never said that, so i'm not sure. Could it be due to the options? It doesn't have the EVIC, no steering wheel controls for the radio, etc. Its a pretty base model. It has keyless entry, sentry keys, power locks and power windows, and thats about it. Nothing else is power on his.

I looked at another 2005 today, it has the EVIC and steering wheel controls and it says which door is open, so i am guessing its just how his is optioned out. It will display one of three things.. Door, Gate, Glass, thats it. I remember when he first got it back before any problems one day we were going crazy trying to figure out which door wasn't latched all the way, we had freezing rain and one of the doors got blocked by some ice and didn't shut all the way but it looked shut, the latch was jammed up with ice. I sprayed some de-icer in it and got the door to latch and the door message to go away. Naturally when this problem came up i suspected that door first, but i checked it with a meter and the ajar switch is perfectly fine.

I even took multiple meters and backprobed the BCM connector and drove around, because sometimes bumps make it change, and i know your thinking wiring problem, i did to, but the state of the door ajar switch wiring never changes on the meter, but the BCM will either be stuck with the DOOR message up or go over a hard bump or make a fast turn and it will suddenly disappear and then the doors lock, then a few seconds later it says DOOR again and the doors unlock. This is all accompanied by the chime going off, and random other little glitches like the dash backlighting going off and back on one time. I suspected the multi function switch for the lighting issue because my 03 had that happen, but a new switch didn't do anything, well it did fix the headlight flicker when the left blinker shut off on a turn, so it was at least beneficial replacing that.

Only thing i can think of is something burnt up in the BCM, maybe some pins are making intermittent contacts on the PCB, maybe water got in it, though i don't see how, but i just need to get the BCM out and inspect that and i have a spare one to try just to see if it changes the behavior we are seeing. But looking at his 05 compared to my 03 there is more crap in the way, there is the brake light switch bracket or metal tang off the steering column bracket in the way and i can't force my way past it. If i try to pull it towards the back of the vehicle there is a stickout from the knee bolster crosspiece, best way i can describe that part its the metal bar where the panel that swings down hinges, it has this big part sticking out like something should be attached to it if this one had that option, but nothing is mounted to it. With that there it can't drop down because the back half of the fuse box rests right on it after its unscrewed. So i'm thinking sawzall cut all that crap out to save the brake light switch from damage? I had two shops look at it, local repair shops that i trust, and both of them said the same thing, get a saw make it come out. What i am seeing in the vehicle doesn't match the FSM for it.