I drove my Rover from North Dakota back home to Colorado. On the trip I got stuck in the blizzard that hit North and South Dakota and had to live in the Rover for a day and a half until the road was reopened. But that is another story.

My cruise control works intermittently and I am at a loss as to where to begin troubleshooting. Sometimes it won't engage at all and other times, such as on the drive home, it would engage for a short time then disengage on it's own. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to when it does or doesn't engage. On the drive home, the cruise wasn't working so I turned the master switch off and back on. After that the cruise control worked just fine for about 50 miles before it disengaged on its own and wouldn't reset for the rest of the trip. I have checked all my vacuum lines and they all seem to be in good condition and the master cruise switch was replaced when I bought the truck. I bought the steering wheel mounted switch and the brake switch to replace them but it seems to me that if either of them was bad the cruise control wouldn't engage at all.

Any suggestions on where to look for the problem is appreciated. Have another road trip coming up shortly and would like to have cruise control.

 

Forget the cruise I want to hear about living in your truck for 36 hours.

I have heard of this happening before but the thread starter never reported the fix.
Start by taking Liquid Tape and gooping up all of the connections on the vacum lines.
Otherwise I would think that it is the cruise control module under the hood.

 

Ok so more about this blizzard. Did you drive around in it? Was it cool living in the truck that long?

 

I can tell you for reasons like this always carry a blanket, hat and gloves, empty water bottle and a cell phone charger in your car.
A bag a beef jerky is also a good idea.

 

Drove in near white out conditions for 40 miles until I found a safe place to stop and wait it out. At times I couldn't even see the end of my hood. Finally pulled into a gas station and waited out the storm. Used the weather bands on the factory LR radio to keep up to date on what the storm was doing. Winds were blowing 50+ mph and gusting to over 70. Really showed where all the air leaks in the truck were. Found out that my rear sunroof is missing one of the screws that hold the glass to the rails so the wind just whistled across there. Overall the truck did great. Kept the nose out of the wind as much as possible to prevent the wind going through the radiator and helping it warm up. Then I laid my heavy jackets over the dog gate behind the rear seat to keep the heat from going back into the cargo area which multiplied the effectiveness of the heater about 4 times. The only problem I had was that being 6 foot tall I had trouble stretching out and getting comfortable. A small price to pay for being warm and alive.

As I was on my way home from work I had all my survival gear and extra food in the truck. I tried not to eat or drink any more than necessary so I didn't have to get out in the wind to relieve myself since the gas station was closed.

I have to say that I really wouldn't have wanted any other vehicle in this situation. The only time I had problems was when I drove into snow drifts that I couldn't see in the gas station parking lot trying to get to the gas pumps. Fortunately a couple truck drivers who were stranded there also helped push me out of the drifts. On the snow covered roads with heavy winds blowing across I had no problem. Used the CDL to make myself feel a little more comfortable but really don't think I needed it. Overall, it was an adventure and that fact that I survived made it fun. Also made me decide to get the maintenance stuff done and take the Rover back to North Dakota when I go next weekend rather than the Dodge.

I actually did a more detailed account of the trip on www.myspace.com/tomscrazyworld. Look for the blog titled "the long road home."

Getting back to the cruise control question, I am going to swap out the brake switch since I already have it here and I'll keep everyone posted on whether it makes a difference. Thinking maybe there is a vacuum leak in the switch.

 

Glad to hear you're ok. That's a pretty intense situation.

Anyway though, back to the topic at hand, definitely check the vacuum lines, 99% of cruise control problems in disco's can be traced back to cracked vacuum lines, or the like.

 

Swapping brake switch did nothing. Going to recheck all vacuum lines.

 

Check the cruise control vacuum pump, actuator, and ecu.