Every single time I putz with the radio I have installed, I manage to blow the fuse that powers the cluster backlight, as well as the taillights (when headlights are on). I'm aware that there is a grey wire which was formerly hooked up to the stock radio, and gave it it's lights as well. THis wire is cut off, and taped up out of the way under the current radio. Anyone else have this problem?

The last time I took out the radio (to fix an occasional cut out due to a loose speaker wire) I made SURE the grey wire was completely out of the way, NO WAY was it going to short with THAT much tape on it. Sure enough, as soon as I put it back together, and turned on the headlights I blew the 20A fuse.

Any ideas?

 

You do know that there is another wire running for the clock illumination back there, right? I can't seem to recall the color of the wire, but it runs right next to the gray one you've taped up GOOD.

 

I did not know there were 2 wires for radio illumination. I do have the grey one that had 12V when the light switch is on 0V when it doesn't taped up. I'll look deeper and see if I can find anything about the second wire. Thanks.

 

Yah.. one controls the main panel lights, and the other dims the clock and display based on the instrument panel's dimmer setting.

You are looking for a BROWN wire, at least according to the wiring diagram I used to install my aftermarket CD player, and IIRC the Delco wiring has NOT changed since GM started to use the "21 wire" radio... I could plug my 87 radio into my dad's 2000 Grand Prix, without wiring modifications, if I wanted to, and vice versa...

 

Many thanks. (slaps forehead, light bulbs and all that). I'll give it a go tomorrow. If I remember right I'd been using brown thinking it was a speaker lead..... Quite probably why it blows eh?

 

That just MIGHT be why the fuse kept blowing. Also you might want to check the speaker it was connected to. The speaker lead is TAN, paired with a GRAY, IIRC. The speaker leads, IIRC, are dk/lt blue for the right rear, yellow and brown for the left rear, tan and gray for the front left speaker, and dk/lt green for the front right speaker. Also, the Orange wire is the constant on wire, not the yellow one... if you connect these backwards, you will never be able to preset your stereo due to the fact that it will lose memory every time you turn the car off. Also, you might want to keep the fact that the PINK wire is the Remote (power antenna, actually) wire, in the back of your head.