Car: 1986 GL Wagon

 

I've been experiencing some weird electrical problems lately. To the best of my memory they started when I installed my after-market stereo, but don't quote me on that. It started as a battery drain. I would come out to start my car in the morning and the voltage was too low to turn it over. I had to charge it up enough to get it started, then the alternator would take over from there. I tried several things to fix it then I unplugged the electric radiator fan and viola, no more battery drain.

 

Another problem was my radio not turning off with the car. The radio would stay on with the key off and even out of the ignition. So I pulled it out of the console and got my digital multi-meter and found that the accessory wire carries voltage regaurdless of whether the key was on.

 

Some other symptoms are:

 

1: Horn, mirrors, and windshield wipers/sprayers work with key off.

2: Windows go up and down with the key in the ON POSITION only.

 

I tried better grounding from battery negative to the chassis.

Edited March 1, 201115 yr by travis1990
Forgot something

Chances are, the radio itself is grounding the acc circuit from the key. The cooling fan would run in acc, when it is staill warm. The green wire behind the radio on the car's harness is your hot all the time. The radio should have a ground strap to the chassis, or at least ground thru the antenna

 

The constant wire is on fuse 5 clock/horn/hazard.

 

With the common ground of the speakers, and using an aftermatket stereo connectoed to the car's speaker harness, all 4 positive leads will be used for each speaker, but inly one ground for the front, and one ground for the rear are used, leaving 2 unused speaker grounds from the aftermarket radio.

 

These unused wires should not be connected, or grounded to the chassis. This should ground the radiao if no ground is present.

 

is your fade/balance out of whack?

Chances are, the radio itself is grounding the acc circuit from the key. The cooling fan would run in acc, when it is staill warm. The green wire behind the radio on the car's harness is your hot all the time. The radio should have a ground strap to the chassis, or at least ground thru the antenna

 

The constant wire is on fuse 5 clock/horn/hazard.

 

With the common ground of the speakers, and using an aftermatket stereo connectoed to the car's speaker harness, all 4 positive leads will be used for each speaker, but inly one ground for the front, and one ground for the rear are used, leaving 2 unused speaker grounds from the aftermarket radio.

 

These unused wires should not be connected, or grounded to the chassis. This should ground the radiao if no ground is present.

 

is your fade/balance out of whack?

 

So what your saying is the negative wires from the two rear speakers shouldn't tie into the aftermarket stereo harness.

Another possible solution...

Most modern sound systems have two power leads, one is to be hooked to battery power (hot all of the time) to keep memory alive, this draws very little power. The other gets hooked to accessory power ( hot when key on only) to power up radio. If the wires are reversed, it will cause a battery drain when off. If they are hooked together, it will cause a drain as well a power up other accessories with the key off ( this sounds most like your problem). There is often a 3rd power wire to be hooked to the dash light circut.

So what your saying is the negative wires from the two rear speakers shouldn't tie into the aftermarket stereo harness.

 

what i am saying is there is one ground for the front, and one ground from the rear, accodring the the car's harness.

 

what i am saying is one negative from the front channel, and one from the rear is not used. it does not matter if its left or right, just front and back, because ground is common.

 

you could just tie both rear grounds into the same wire for the rear, and same for the front.

I'd say it is probably that hot wire. I'm gonna try to attach the mitchell wiring diagram for an 87 gl. I might help you out. wiring diagram pdf download

I'd say it is probably that hot wire. I'm gonna try to attach the mitchell wiring diagram for an 87 gl. I might help you out. wiring diagram pdf download

 

That link appears to be broken, but a wiring diagram would definately help.

That's weird. Worked last night. try this one

If things are staying turned on while the key is in the OFF position and the wiring hasn't been modified from stock then the igntion switch has a problem. It sounds like the ACC position of the ignition switch isn't turning off as it should.

 

Newer style radios usually have what is termed as a balanced output to the speakers. This means the wires to the speaker channels are isolated from each other and from chassis of the car. The older model cars used chassis ground for one side of the speakers so in order to make things right for the newer style radios a seperate wire should be run to each speaker to replace the connection to ground.

If things are staying turned on while the key is in the OFF position and the wiring hasn't been modified from stock then the igntion switch has a problem. It sounds like the ACC position of the ignition switch isn't turning off as it should.

 

Newer style radios usually have what is termed as a balanced output to the speakers. This means the wires to the speaker channels are isolated from each other and from chassis of the car. The older model cars used chassis ground for one side of the speakers so in order to make things right for the newer style radios a seperate wire should be run to each speaker to replace the connection to ground.

 

Aaahhhh, I gotcha. I only ran new wires to the front speakers. I got lazy and didn't run them to the rear, because I didn't think it was absolutely necessary. So I'll try that and see if that helps. Thanks.