Hello everybody, I’m new to these forums so I hope this is the right spot for my question.

I acquired a 1995 Cherokee from one of the members in this forum and he highly recommended it. Anyways the radio and cigarette lighter wasn’t working since I got it so I decided to change the fuse. I put in a 30a just because that’s what I had. Well the radio turned on and the cigarette lighter gets 12 volts to my volt meter. When I plug in any of my chargers to it though both the cigarette lighter and the radio completely lose all power.

I traced the wires and nothing looks exposed or cut, I tried it with the radio unplugged and tested the connector and still no power at the volt meter. 12.6 volts when the charger is unplugged at both cig lighter and radio

 

I would change the cigarette lighter , it's probably been there since 1995 and it mite be shorting out

 

Id take that 30 amp fuse out asap. I think it is too large, just a hunch. I dont have the fuse list for your year truck handy. If it is too large you risk a melted wire harness, even a fire. Use the correct fuse, nothing higher.
Yes a short in the lighter socket can cause a voltage drop at the radio if they are on the same circuit. That short, assuming your 30 amp fuse is to high a rating is likely to melt the wires, or cause a fire. Keep in mind that when a wire in a bundle melts, it often takes other wires with it, a big expensive mess at best, a fire and total loss of your truck, maybe even your garage and home, and life at worse. Always never do this.

 

Surprised those 2 are on the same fuse as the lighter is quite high draw & radio so low. The lighter fuse is probably 25a whereas radios are usually 5a - but only because 1a fuses are hard to come by.

For some reason I've never really understood lighter sockets are prone to rusting, so that's definitely suspect (not sure how easy they are to change though) although those charger adaptors can be pretty flaky too.

 

On a 1995, the cigar lighter, radio, and LCD illumination relay all feed off fuse #2 from the ignition switch, which should be a 15-amp. Sounds like a bad connection on the +12v wire somewhere . Measure the voltage at the fuse when this happens, as that will tell you if the problem is upstream or downstream of the fuse. Measure resistance between the fuse and the power at the lighter and radio. The FSM shows an inline splice S207 in the wiring after the fuse and fanning out to the radio/lighter/relay, located up behind the dash somewhere.

 

I did try that and same problem persists

 

I’ll do that tonight. I feel if there’s an issue it might be at a factory inline splice. My brother has a really nice ammeter and I’ll post if I have any findings. Besides for the new info of the splice I’m also going to see if there’s corrosion in the panel that I wasn’t able to see.