[gmrt96]

My stock radio (and its built in clock) have just stopped working, and my troubleshooting so far has been unsuccessful. I'd be very grateful for any advice.

Fuses are visually fine, and I've confirmed that by switching them around and found no change in the radio. I've also used a 12v test light to check for power, results below.

My biggest problem seems to be in knowing for certain which fuse panel receptacle corresponds to which printed label on the panel. If the labeling pattern is the same all the way across the panel, as I suspect it is, then I DO have 12v at the radio fuse slot. But I'm not absolutely convinced of that. Here's why:

There seems to be a discrepancy between fuse slots on one side of the fuse panel to the slots on the other side - that is, the hot terminal is the LOWER one on the left side (horn for example), while on the right, the only terminal where I found 12v is UPPER terminal. So if that's different left to right, maybe the labeling is different too? I doubt it, but I'm just not certain, and that makes all the difference in my troubleshooting.

So, what I really need to know is if anyone is SURE which slot corresponds to the label saying "Radio".

I tried to solve this by checking another fuse, I picked the horn for convenience. The horn works. When I pull the yellow 20a fuse to the RIGHT of the label, the horn does not work. OK, that was easy. Again, the hot side is is the lower terminal. Of the three fuse slots on the right side of the panel, only one of them has power supplied to it according to my test light.

I made a clear closeup photograph of the fuse panel, but don't yet see how to attach a file here so I'm out of luck on that.

What I found is that of the three fuse slots on the right side of the panel, only two are labeled, and the slot which is to the RIGHT of the label indicating "radio" (like the one for horn) is the one with 12v. Again, the test light showed the hot terminal to be the upper, unlike for the horn fuse slot. The other labeled slot is for "HT MIR", no power there according to my light. As far as I know this car is not equipped with heated mirrors.

Most likely the label scheme is consistent all the way across the panel, and thus the slot where I get 12v (the one to the RIGHT of the label "radio") is indeed for the radio. And if that's the case, my problem is somewhere between the fuse and the radio, possibly the radio itself. But if the labeling is also reversed as is the hot terminal, then my problem is lack of power at the radio fuse slot. You can see how fundamental this is for troubleshooting.

As far as I can tell there are no other electrical problems. So if I have power to the fuse, are there any other possible causes for the dead radio other than the unit itself? Bad ground I suppose is one, I'll check that next.

Thanks very much for any help!

 

[gmrt96]

Thanks Bob. I did have the key in the "on" position...so that's not the issue. I thought I'd written that in my post but apparently deleted it when I made other changes.

Any other ideas before I pull the radio?

 

[gmrt96]

Thanks for the help thus far. I was hoping for some simple alternative to pulling the radio. Even though that's apparently relatively easy, the higher priority now is drying out the carpet resulting from a plugged cowl drain. Cleared the drain but there's about 40 acre feet of water in the passenger side carpet underlayment. Yuck.

Anyway, thanks especially to Imperial Crown for the detail info on radio removal...the factory manual was not quite so helpful.

I had been edging closer to this anyway, the cassette player needed work (or replacement with cd player). Fortunately I have a friend who does audio repair professionally, for decent prices, so I may just fix what I've got.

 

[gmrt96]

Once again, thanks ImperialCrown. I had no problem cleaning the cowl drains on both sides, it was easier after I improvised an extension for the blow gun on my compressor hose. I had the wipers and cowl screen removed, easy job on this car. When I was done I tested the drains with water from the garden hose...all clear. We have rain coming tonight so now I'll get to see if this really was the problem, or if there's a weather strip or windshield seal issue....but the drain is much more likely.

I have the carpet pulled up but the pad is really holding the water in spite of two days of open doors and sunny weather. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and pull the pad out to dry. THEN, maybe I'll get to the radio!

 

[gmrt96]

5 minutes to exchange radios? Now that changes everything. Last time I dove into a radio, it was in my older Caravan. It had the Infinitiy system. That was an ordeal, or at least I made it that way by lack of experience. Then the junkyard replacement failed shortly, so I bought a base model Pioneer which still works, but adapting it to the larger opening was tedious. So I'd prefer to swap in a stock replacement I think.

As far as buying a replacement, are units from 1996-2000 all interchangeable (except Infinity)? Our local wrecking yard is small and sparse, so I may not have many good choices until I head down to Sacramento.

Regarding the cowl drains, as I wrote, I did clear both sides, and it was definitely the passenger side where the water came in, but that may be explained by the slope of the spot I'd parked in....we had a monster storm - rain and wind - and I'd deliberately parked the car away from the bigger trees on my property, that spot caused it to be leaning to the right.

So why would the passenger side generally be more apt to have a clogged drain? I didn't detect any major difference in the debris in the two.

 

[gmrt96]

Thanks Valiant. It's helpful to know the range of years which should be usable.

But I'm surprised by the inclusion of the Infinity radio. From one previous experience, I though that the Infinity radio was quite different electronically. My older GC (LE) had the Infinity system, while the van in question, 1996 GC (SE), is the base model van, so no Infinity. I vaguely remember that the Infinity speakers are wired differently, among other things I believe they have direct 12V power right to the speakers. Thus I would imagine that the harness connector would be different, or else I'd need some kind of adaptor, or the swap could turn into a can of worms turned loose.

 

[gmrt96]

Great, thanks thanks for the clarification AJ and Valiant. This is very helpful.

I may get to the Pick and Pull next week, so I guess I'd better pull that radio out on Saturday.