Illumination Lights not working

Hubby installed new radio :) BUT when he did, he fused the new radio into box and now my Illumination lights are dead. Ya know when you first start up Tracker and then the lights and dash kick on after a few seconds?? Well, my lights come right on now and no speedometer,gas gauge lights at all. Can someone PLEASE help!! Can't keep driving with no lights..too dark at 4 AM..lol THANKS!!

He probably hooked the GROUND wire on the new radio to the ILLUM wire on the car, if he was wiring by cutting the original wires, testing with a meter and hooking the new wires. When the car is off, the vehicle ILLUM wire tests like a ground, but when you turn the car on, you blow the dash light fuse, causing all those lights to go out. Check the fuse, if it blows again when you replace it, then dollars to donuts, thats what's wrong. You'll have to take the stereo back out, and cut the ground->illum short. In all honesty, most vehicles and radios don't NEED the ground wire attached, the radio will ground through the antenna sheilding. I wouldn't recommend this unless you can't find the proper ground wire and/or there's no chassis ground there to attach to.

This is why I bang on, endlessly, about the need to use proper Metra or Scosche adaptors instead of hacking and wiring when installing new radios. For the sake of $10 for a harness at a Stereo Shop, or even Wal*Mart, for that matter, things like this could be avoided. The colors are all there, and there's no hunting, pecking, cutting, stripping, blowing fuses, or hooking speakers up in reverse.

Thanks for reply!! Greatly appreciated! Well, he did not cut into any wires. He bought a harness from C.City..plugged in and then he was told by C. City that he would have to take the red wire connected to the harness and fuse it. He put the wire in the Cig fuse and radio worked ok...NOW radio works w/out the red wire hooked into anything but STILL no lights! Frustrating!!
So, to reiterate..no wires were spliced into, all fuses are good, radio works fine without the red wire connected and no Illum lights. It's like the ACL is not functioning correctly because the headlights come on instantly when it used to have a pause in the darkness. Next suggestion..LOL

You don't need that fuse business with a tracker. That's for newer Cavaliers and Sunfires. Just wire the store harness color to color (red->red, black->black etc) to the stereo's harness, plug it in, and it'll work. You've probably blown the cig lighter fuse because of hooking that wire up, simply replace that, and it should all work.

A stereo has 3 power related wires. Black, Yellow, Red, which are Ground, Constant 12v, Switched 12v respectively. The reason you need that fused wire on other new Chev vehicles, is that they have no switched power on the harness, because the stereos are what they call "Databus" stereos. The car's computer tells the stereo when to turn on and off, so it's not needed. In that case, you need to run a wire to the cig lighter fuse in the fuse panel. Trackers don't need that.

Sorry for jumping on you about the harness thing, i just get so frustrated with posting "get a harness" every couple weeks when people mess up a stereo install.

Better to jump on the Harness thing..lol Some folks just wire away. Thanks..will check the fuses again. Hubby swears they are all ok, but he has limited my trust just a wee bit.lol

Well, put the stock stereo back in, checked fuses (in Engine Compt. & under dash) with a meter..ALL good! STILL have no illumination lights AND the radio clock is dim (no lights). Can ANYONE please help with this. I bought a Haynes manual (SUCKED!!) with NO luck as it says NOTHING!! Not the Tail Relay and of course the two Chevy dealers I called were clueless. Thanks to anyone with suggestions.

Turns out it is the combination/multifunction switch..of course dealer only and 240.00..WOW!! Thanks for your help!!