89 Daytona Power problems?

Hey, I have an 89 Dodge daytona and a few weeks ago I installed a cd player in it, and it worked fine up until now. What the problem is, is that whenever you try to turn the cd player on, it looks like it is getting insufficient power. It will turn on and everything but the lights are very dim, the radio will not work, the cd player wont play any cds..it will just go and shut off when you hit the cd player mode, and when I turn on the dome light, the radio completely shuts off. What is happening here? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks



-J

Did you attatch the grounding strap to the radio? Sounds like a grounding problem.

I would have to second that - it sounds like you have a bad ground connection. Also check to see that the +12VDC Battery wire and the +12VDC Ignition wire both show proper voltage. It is possible that your ground connection is not being made at all, and the ground is running through the illumination portion of the wiring - that would explain why turning on the dome light kills everyhting. Check to see that you didnt attach the ground wire to something isolated by plastic (these cars have LOTS of plastic under the dash).

Take out your CD player and make sure the fuse isn't blown, then look in your fuse box and make sure the radio fuse isn't blown as well, if that don't work do what the people above me said.

I had a similar problem. Sometimes I would get in my car and the lights would be dim. If I turned anything else on they would get dimmer. Thought it was the battery, after going out and buying one with no change I was forced to find out what the issue was.

I found that there is a big ground wire that connects the electricals next to the battery. It has a plug that snaps together.

It is located inside the engine compartment right next to the strut tower. Sometimes it is barried under other wires. The plug has a male and female side to it. One part is a metal tube that is inserted into the other side of the plug.

It is black plastic. It is a big connector. I discovered this one day as I was not able to start the car and the lights were dim. So I started pushing on the wires under the hood until I noticed my lights would go from dim to bright.

I took mine appart and cleaned the connector with electrical contact cleaner and an old tooth brush. I have never had the problems since.

You may have a ground problem somewhere else, but this is an obvious place to check and it does get bad over time.

Hope that helps.