My neighbour got a new head unit yesterday for christmas, and me having put one into my 4runner helped him install it. He has an 87 turbo 22re 4runner with the SR5 package. His stock radio had the factory amplifier so it was a little difficult to figure out the wiring but after some head scratching we got everything working perfectly by removing the factory amp and just leaving the plugs for it behind the dash. He goes home happy as can be.

Fast forward to tonight. He calls me and said while he was on the way to work his radio stopped working gave an error code, all of the lights in his dash cluster go out and he has absolutely no power when he tries to accelerate. He said his radio came back on and is working but his dash cluster will only light up and none of the gauges work, his is the digital one that came in the turbos, and he has to put it to the floor to go anywhere from a red light. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet but i will tomorrow or late tonight.

My guess is some fuses popped but im not sure which ones and i don't know why installing a new radio head unit would cause this to happen. ha anyone experienced anything like this or have any ideas as to what could have caused it and how to fix it and fix what caused it?

Thanks in advance.

 

That sucks man no good deed goes unpunished. Hope you get it figured out.

 

Just how did you install the radio ??

Did you just plug into the factory harness or did you start cutting wires.

if you started cutting just where did you get the switched power and the constant power??

Hook up the ground wire?? sounds like an intermittent ground issue



Auto or manual trans??

The gauges are powered by the 15amp engine fuse

the gauge lights by the 15 amp tail light fuse.

 

I had to cut wires and connect the harness for the new head unit.

I looked up the factory wiring diagram for the radio. The constant power was a blue and yellow wire, the switched power was gray, and the ground wire was brown.

Everything was working perfectly when he left my house.

It has an Auto transmission.

Thanks for the fuse information.

Would the engine fuse make it have no power?

 

I doubt it's a fuse issue.

There is an E2 and E21 ground through the computer (there may be others I dont have experience with?) these can cause issues if shorting/grounding to vehicle body or other wires. Just take the radio out, re-check all of the wires you touched and you may see something that isn't supposed to be.

 

How did you make your connections

Solder ??

Crimped butt connectors??

Then has problems could be unrelated to the radio install

Did you have the negative battery terminal off?

Didn`t get it tight??

 

If you blew a fuse, the radio would not work at all. Might have blown the dash light fuse though, so I'd still check them.


Most likely one of your wires came lose and shorted out. You'll have to crack it open again and inspect every wire.

 

solved the problem. It was popping the engine fuse because there was a bad connection at one of the butt connectors we used. fixed the connection and replaced the fuse. no problems since.

 

You will have that with butt connectors.

I am glad you found the problem