So I decided to buy a CD player to replace the stock radio in my daily driver Ranger. I went and bought the wiring adapter and a new radio and saudered and wire nutted the adapter to the new radio wiring and then put a good amount of electrical tape on all the connections. When I plugged the new radio into the factory harness, the radio didn't come on. Then I slid the radio into the dash and it sparked off the metal of the dash. So I removed the radio, re-wired the adapter and CD player harness and then tried again with the same results. At this point its getting late so I decide just to put my stock radio back in until I figure out whats up. So when I plugged the stock radio into the stock harness...all of which was unmolested as if I'd never touched it, the same thing happened. Sparks, no radio workin', etc. So at this point I'm thinkin that somewhere in my wiring there has to be some skinned up wire or something. The previous owner of the truck did say he had the radio out once but when I took it out I noticed that there was factory shrink wrap looking stuff over the connectors that had never been removed. So I'm thinkin he may have pulled on the wiring harness to hard and messed some wires up or something. Anyway, anyone who is good at this have any ideas? I hate to think of pulling all the wiring on this thing..ugh.
What did you do for a ground? On most of the 80's Ford cars, the "clip" that holds the radio to the dash supports is the gound. I'd swap that to the new unit...as it also acts as a good support brace as well. If you're trying to keep the radio away from the metal on in the dash, you have no ground...thus no power circuit.
It's pretty hard to screw up the factory radio wiring....just pulling on it won't do much to it.
Well there was the black wire that I is the ground which I spliced up. I'm gonna get the old voltmeter out tonight and see what I can find out. So Chuck you think there should have been a separate ground on the back of the radio?
On my 87 Ranger...the ground was the stereo case itself. I wound up grounding the black gound wire to the new unit to the dash metal, but I think on the old unit (which was stolen, I had used the original bracket/ground on the back. Either should work.
I don't think there was a ground in the factory stereo wiring (as it uses the dash as a ground) Perhaps try it with the ground from the stereo going directly to the dash metal (under one of the screws) instead of wherever else you have it connected.
Did you check the fuse?
Also, some aftermarket units have a fuse either in the unit or the wiring. Did that blow?
Checked all fuses. It did blow the one in the fuse block but I put a new one in. Fuse in the radio itself OK. I'll try grounding the radio to the dash metal and see what happens. Thanks for the help man.
Edit: Oh one other thing I thought was wierd. When I plugged in the new radio the first time and had the problems...the only thing that showed up on the radio display was 1:00. When I put the stock one back in it displayed the same thing.
figured it out. I ended up moving all the mounting hardware from the old radio to the new one and it worked. Guess it made a better ground with the dash.
Cool