Hi, I have a 1999 Cherokee Sport, and have been trying to get my headunit to work for quite a while now. I bought a new Kenwood headunit about a week ago, bought the dash install kit, and the wireing harness (conversion doodad), spliced the wires, wrapped them good, then coated them in electrical tape. Symptoms are as follows: the headunit will work (play radio, cd's, and ipod) but at random points it shuts off. Sometimes for just a second or two, sometimes for 10 minutes. I have double and triple checked all my connections and all seem to be good. Ive checked all my interior fuses, and all those are good. It doesnt happen when i hit bumps, its totally random when it will shut off. I also just got a new battery today and that didnt seem to help either (I needed a battery anyways). So any help would be appreciated, thanks

sounds like there might be a short on the power wire, simple enough to run a new one and see if thet helps.

ok, forgot some stuff. All of my other electric stuff (lights, switches, ect.) all work, its only the ower to the headunit that doesnt (sometimes). Where would I run a wire from? the battery to the headunit? Im not new to jeeps I just really suck at electrical stuff.

this is a very common problem.... best way to explain it is that the stock jeep speaker wire sucks... it causes the stereo to ground through the speakers rather than the "frame" i would just replace the speaker wiring it worked for me

ok, the only pronlem is that I am home from college for christmas break and im heading back to school sunday mid day and dont have enough time to re-do all the seaker wire. Is there any easy way to solve this problem with out re-doing all the wire? I have a busy day tomorrow so my only issue is the time restraint.

from my personal experience the problem is the front driver speaker in the door just disconnecting it should make the stereo stay on... if its not that speaker you could go through each one individually until you find the problem speaker

Disconnecting the drivers door speaker worked for me too. Happened to be a kenwood deck as well.

haha mine was a panasonic (was actually stolen last night) but i redid all the speaker wire with cat5 networking cable and it sounded freakin sweet! highly recommend it!

awesome, thanks for all the help guys, ill keep you filled in on how it goes.

Same problem here, same solution.

ok, so I just disconnected the driver door speaker and if anything it made it worse. Im thinking I may just need to replace all the speaker wiring in the next few hours. So I have the passenger and driver door speakers, the two speakers on the ceiling in the back and is that it? And where do all the speaker wires converge to? would it be right behind where the headunit goes in, or behind the glovebox? I had a wrangler and I believe in that it was behind the glovebox. Any additonal help would be great. ----99 cherokee sport





any write-ups on how to re-do the wiring or all the speakers?

So I just went through every speaker like BRETT said above and checked to see if I could tell which was the problem speaker, but none of the speakers were the problem. Each time I checked turned the car on to check the radio it was the same reaction each time (headunit turning on then off and never staying on), which makes me think that it may be the power wire. It looks like the PO replaced the speaker wire for the two front speakers and kept the stock wireing for the rear. So my my question now is, how do I wire a new power wire to the headunit? do i have to tie into something special?

rather than power to the head unit maybe you should check the ground or even run you own just run your own wire straight off the black wire on the head unit to a good piece of metal on the body scuff it up so there is no paint and its bare metal that your grounding too. and use just any self tapper make sure its a good connection maybe that will solve it but its hard to say without seeing the problem myself
good luck and trust me i know that goin without tunes sucks so i feel your pain and frustration

Usualy if your ground shorts out it does so on a peice of matal behind yhe dash somewere and would only cause a ground when it rubbed. Your radio will not turn off because it is being grounded through the ground wire.If you take the positive wire from the back of the head unit and connect it to a new length of wire you can just run that to the radio fuse.to check and see if that is the problem just pull the fuse and wrapp the wire around the prong on the fuse and plug it back in.I know its not the right way to do it but thats how I left mine to be on many vehicles because it can be pretty difficult to pull the fuse box and wire it in right.Good luck.

this would be a good fix if he was having the entire deck not function... but if i remember correctly i think he said it still lit up and everything just wouldnt play any sound... so the power to the deck is not a problem

please feel free to correct me if i am wrong tho