BlueRidgeMark

That's not a bad idea.

SlickXJ

Well, before I ran the radio it's own ground, I decided to check the engine bay grounds. Looking at a post CCKen made about grounds, I checked G106 because it pertains to a few of the flaky components. It's next to the airbox on the fender/wheelwell, and to my dismay, they looked ok. I decided to take them off to check and I found something interesting. Two things actually:

1. There was like a "moat" around the hole for the screw causing the eyelets for the grounds to not make full contact

2. Since this car got repainted, there was paint all under the ground inhibiting the connection greatly.

I popped the "moat" out from the back side with a hammer, took my dremel to the paint, got a bolt with a nut and lock washer instead of the screw it was using, and replaced the ground connections with fresh eyelets and some heatshrink.

Cranked her up, radio didn't restart at all when I tried to make it. Did the wiper pump and the AC controls and no restart! Only thing I have yet to test is the cigarette lighter making it restart, but so far it seems that was the fix. Thanks for the post you made about grounds, CCKen. Helped a fair amount

EDIT: for anyone wondering about the post I'm talking about, post #49 and down ---> https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f2/gre...e-6558/index4/

BlueRidgeMark

Very good!

Lesson learned: Grounds cannot be inspected properly without taking them apart!

Now take it apart again and get some dielectric grease on it to inhibit future corrosion.



As for it fixing the problem, well, see my sig, item #1.

SlickXJ

Yea, I just ran out a week or so ago and haven't picked up more yet, so that connection is nude right now. I'll grab some today if I can. I dielectric my battery connections (not the posts though) and all my grounds, as well as spark plug wires, inside of harness connections, etc. Even used a little when I fixed my NSS. And I laughed when I saw your sig. Didn't even realize that was there, I just never trust connections that "look" good. I've replaced many grounds so far in my engine bay, G106 was one of the untouched ones.

SlickXJ

There's the location of the grounds and what mine looks like. It's all got dielectric grease on it even if you can't tell from the pictures

BlueRidgeMark

There ya go!

You did strip the pain to bare metal, right?

SlickXJ

Yea, took my dremel with a grinding wheel on it. You can see a couple of the spots on the second picture around the eyelets where the dremel jumped and hit a spot I didn't mean to go. Oh well lol.

CherokeeChick

To me it sounds like you have a short some where. They can cause all sorts of strange things to happen, your kick panel has some large fuses at the top which powers your cigarette lighter. Get out your wiring diagrams, double check that your unit is hooked up properly. Inspect and shake things around while the head unit is on, or supposed to be on trace back your wires until you find power. Remember on the power side you're looking for 12 and on the ground side 0 anything else indicates a problem. What you can do is trace back until you find power and then run a new power wire from where you have power to the head unit, you can similarly do the same with your ground except I would just make a new ground and ground it to a solid point. Hope this helps

SlickXJ

Radio has a dedicated 12v fused line from the battery that it had when I got it. I tested it with a multimeter before I used it and it was good, and it's a super simple run from the battery to the back of the radio. I've pulled the wire out and inspected it before and after the problem occurred and it's all good.

Just for the sake of doing it, I went out and tested the cigarette lighter turning off my radio, and I found out a couple things. Prior to fixing those grounds, putting the cigarette lighter to USB adapter in would instantly turn my radio off and keep it off until i took it out, and even then the radio sometimes wouldn't come back on. Another thing is the LED on the USB adapter wouldn't light up. Now, the LED lights up. Also, the radio did restart on the first insertion, but just a very quick restart, came back on within 3 seconds or so even with the USB adapter still in there, and it stayed on. I tried multiple times to make it turn back off with taking the adapter out and putting it back in, loading the system with the blower motor, headlights, wipers, but it stayed on. I don't know what that first restart was I just saw, maybe residual power or something, but I don't think I'm going to worry about it since the cigarette lighter now works, my headunit has a USB port on it, and I never use the cigarette lighter.

I agree something might still be wrong though, but I'm content where I'm at for now. Should something else occur in terms of an electrical gremlin, I'll be sure to track it down some more.

SlickXJ

Now that I've had a few days to play with it, I feel comfortable enough to say that it was that grounding point causing the problem. My radio is considerably brighter now, and it has yet to shut off. I keep doing everything I can to replicate the previous problem by using the wipers with fluid, different AC settings, different blower speeds, cigarette lighter, but it stays on. I don't know why the first time after the repair using the cigarette lighter adapter caused the radio to quickly restart once and no more afterwards. Guess it's one of those Jeep things I'm a happy camper right now. Thanks for the help guys, and good luck to anyone else having a similar problem. I hope it's as simple of a fix as mine was!

BlueRidgeMark

Nope. "Short" is a very misunderstood term, and often tossed around by those who don't understand electricity.


Shorts almost always cause blown fuses and burned wires. They are usually very straightforward. It can sometimes be hard to find where they are physically located (buried in a wiring loom under the dash, etc.), but unless you have a short from one hot wire to another circuit's hot wire, a blown fuse or burned wire (or both) is all you'll get from a short.

Loose connections can cause intermittent operation, and not much else.

Bad grounds are what cause mysterious, seemingly impossible symptoms.



Heh. Watch those guys. A multimeter can show a good connection that doesn't work once a load is put on it. If it's a power lead, double check with a test light.


Given what you've described, I think you are right.

SlickXJ

So backprobe it at the headunit connection while it's on and check it with a test light?

nujeepguy

absolutly true!!,,,tossed !!

bfrat

Not sure if this is a good post for my issue but sounds similar. I recently cleaned all my grounds and re-use the strap at rear engine block. My FM radio channels come and go. Not sure how to get identity the problem. Any help would be great.

steelybill

I had been through all this with the original Jeep radio. The problem turned out to be that antenna lead connector that is behind the passenger side kick-panel below the dash. That connector has been discussed here before, and that is why I got into it.
When I fixed that I replaced the radio with a Pioneer..