Chrysler Repair: Cruise control on 97 Twon and country, cruise control system, power brake booster

Question
We recently bought a 97 town and county lxi and for some reason the cruise control is not working. We thought it might be the fuse so we looked for the cruise control fuse and could not find one. Just wondering if you could give us some info on what might be the problem.

Answer
Hi Meagan,
I don't have a Chrysler shop manual for a post-'93 van, but I do have the Haynes manual that covers the '97 model. It appears that there is not a separate fuse dedicated to the cruise control system but rather it depends upon the electrical functioning of several other systems including the complex engine control system (though there would be other problems if that was the cause).
About the only obvious parts of the system that you might check are the brake light switch and the vacuum supply line to the actual servo unit that operates via a cable to the throttle to maintain the set speed. The brake lights should be observed to make sure that they are neither on all the time nor too easily actuated by a slight vibration of the brake pedal, and also checked that the brake lights are coming on when you step on the brake. The brake lights being actuated will cancel the cruise control.
The servo unit is located under the battery in the car lines of Chrysler and there is a vacuum hose between it and the intake manifold usually via a connection to the large vacuum hose that you will see at the power brake booster can located above the brake master cylinder. So look for the round canister in the engine compartment that is mounted at the firewall right in front of brake pedal location in the cabin. You will see a fat hose coming to it from the engine manifold where the incoming air is drawn to mix with the gas. There will be a thinner rubber hose spliced into that fat hose and it runs forward and ends at the servo. Make sure that hose is connected at both ends and that it isn't cracked so as to leak air into the system. One other check would be to see that the cable from the servo unit to the throttle is connected at both ends.
If those three checks don't reveal a problem then I believe that the electrical wiring of the various parts of the system will need to be checked. The most common weak link is the connection from the steering wheel to the rest of the system called the 'clockspring' whose wires will sooner or later break. But without an electrical tester and wiring diagram there is no way to check that it is the problem. If you want to try checking that clockspring I can tell you the wire colors on either side of the unit that need to be tested for patency for the system to work.
I unfortunately can't give you a certain fix for the problem.
Roland