Yah I hear yah there. This generation of trucks has many electrical issues as they age, it's essentially the achilles' heel.

 

Pull the radio and test the power feeds to the radio connector. If you're getting full power when you think you should with the ignition key at the different positions, then the problem is the radio or speaker wiring. If you're not getting full power at the connector, then get the wiring diagram and trace it back until you find the component that isn't working properly. If I had to guess based on your description, its likely the ignition switch or the wiring related to it. However its cheaper and faster to test for root cause than to guess and be wrong - plus you typically learn and become more comfortable with the the vehicle.

 

Thank you very much. I will be taking it all back apart next week and will test it out.

 

I took the radio out and ran the hot wires and ground straight to the battery along with a speaker and it has played now 15 minutes which in the truck I may get 5 minutes before the sound goes out.
I also found out today that if I touch my window switch the sound cuts out immediately which is weird to me.
I'm thinking about just running straight wires. I cannot locate an amp (which it's not supposed to have being a 4 speaker system) even though there is a fuse for one which is probably just for the radio. I've also changed all the fuses associated with the radio. Thoughts?

 

It doesn't have an amp, I don't believe. You may have a ground issue. The simple fix would be to just run a fused hot wire from a fuse that is hot with the key on and another ground to a metal part of the dash.

 

I searched yesterday for an amp and never found one b/c it's not supposed to but you never know. Yes, I agree I'm going to do just that. But for $35 I'm going to change the ignition switch out. The radio ran great yesterday hooked straight to the battery...I also noticed that it gets hot when it is hooked up to the harness which it did not do when ran straight.

 

Sounds like it is definitely not getting enough power or ground thru the harness. If the switch doesn't fix it, then just rewire it to a "key on hot" fuse in the fuse box, that way it will go off like it should when you turn off they key and don't have to worry about accidentally leaving it on.

 

How did you do? solve the problem?