Radio installation nightmare

[mattmc]

My son had a friend install a radio in his 1994 Lumina. Now when he turns on his lights, the parking & marker lights and dash lights do not work. Every time you turn them on, the fuse immediately blows. Also checked the fuse box in the engine compartment and everything looks good there. We replaced the light switch on the dash and this didn't work either. Where do we go from here?

[16th hippy]

ok....your kids friend did mess up a small bit from what i am thinking. the factory radio has/had some lights in it that came on while parking lights/headlights were on. these are on same circuit as lights on dash. while installing radio, he must have cut the wire going into the radio for the lights, and either hooked it up to something that he shouldn't have, or it is touching metal, creating a short to ground, and blowing fuse. get the haynes manual, find out the wire it is, remove radio, unhook and tape it up or something to keep it from blowing fuse. then replace fuse and re-test. assuming the aftermarket radio has it's own lights that are on anytime the radio is on. let us know what you find.

[j cAT]

Originally Posted by mattmc

My son had a friend install a radio in his 1994 Lumina. Now when he turns on his lights, the parking & marker lights and dash lights do not work. Every time you turn them on, the fuse immediately blows. Also checked the fuse box in the engine compartment and everything looks good there. We replaced the light switch on the dash and this didn't work either. Where do we go from here?

when you install an after market radio/cd unit you must buy the proper connector adapter. this is required whenever persons unfamiliar with car electrical wiring are desiring to change the radio/cd players ......also it is common for these untrained installers to cause your car to go up in flames because of the improper fusing with this type of installation .................

[16th hippy]

Originally Posted by j cAT

when you install an after market radio/cd unit you must buy the proper connector adapter. this is required whenever persons unfamiliar with car electrical wiring are desiring to change the radio/cd players ......also it is common for these untrained installers to cause your car to go up in flames because of the improper fusing with this type of installation .................

i could wire up a radio easily, but i agree on spending the extra $$$ for the "plug and play" connections. reason being, if/when i sell my truck, all i gotta do is slap the factory radio back in, and let it go. no re-wiring hassles and so on.

[dwalmop]

Proper wire harness from wally-world = about $7.99.

[Matts3100]

If you hook up the display dimmer power wire to the ground, every time you turn your lights on it will blow your interior lights fuse. I did this trying to hook up a radio in a 93 Cutlass Ciera in the dark with no connector. In my case the tail lights did not work also, so it was kind of a problem . Stupid mistake , But in this case the $7 connector was $6.50 more than the car was worth