HI all...

Well is is the weird one of the day.

I installed a new radio. I used a JVC arsenal. (thanks for the suggestion blackvan! )

I got the adapter harnesses and soddered them together. I have installed dozens of aftermarket radios before and do a lot of electrical work in my profession, so I made sure it was right. I plugged in the adapters to the factor harness and then I installed the head unit. It worked great. My wife and I went for a beach cruise that friday night. We went 50 miles or so with no issues - radio worked great!

The next day, I put the whole family in the van and we did a "one tank trip" up into the hills of Brooksville. We drove about 120 miles when this gremlin appeard. My wife went to roll down her window (passenger) and the circuit breaker tripped! It reset itself after about 5 minutes. How did I know that? Well, the radio shut off also when the breaker for the windows tripped. I had my wife take out the owners manual, (for some reason I have the 1999 owners manual) and I don't remember off the top of my head, but the power windows and radio are on different circuits? So how could of this happened? Also the radio is on a fuse I believe, the windows are on breakers. This is a strange one.

After another 5 or so minutes everything went back to working fine.
Just now, I walked out there and tried the radio on, loudly and put the window up and down three times...no problems...used both switches on both sides.

The only thing out of sorts is the passenger motor seems like it is on its last legs. Is is going up and down about 50% slower than the drivers side.

Any ideas? Do these new radios have a overvoltage senser in them, so it sense high voltage and turned itself off? Then why would the radio stay off until the power window circuit breaker tripped?

 

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I found a bad ground strap from the pass side rear head (bolt) to the body via clip that sits under the dog house. Mine is toast and its a bad spot to have a body ground anyway.

I plan on running 2 or 3 different grounds to help ensure a strong system ground to the whole van (might be why the door use to shock me when I would exit sometimes)

 

Gentlemen --

Is one spot better than the other for a ground. Right now the main ground goes to the PS bracket. I am thinking of taking an 8 gauge wire, put it around the same bolt as the batter and then screw the other eylett into the body near the footwell of the drivers side...

Does that sound good?

 

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Thanks for the pic! Great idea!

 

So I started to investigate the ground and I found that the 10g wire you spoke of was loose where it connected to the battery terminal. So I reattached it to the terminal. I also went ahead and put on a new body ground. I found a nice 6 gauge 15 inch cable at WalMart made for lawnmowers that was a perfect fit!

All electricial systems now work great.

Also here is a pic of the new JVC!

Thanks for your help!

 

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wow - thanks for the info...