Confusing wires

I’m back in East Texas for a bit.  Sunday morning I decided I was going to install a new FM modulator in my car (to hook up my mp3 player to).  It’s a simple task, really.  You simply pull everything out of the dash, pick up power from the 12V source coming into the radio, install the switch somewhere in the dash, plug in the unit between the antenna and the stereo and close everything back up.  Well, I did just that, got everything ready for a nice little test drive and it was working beautifully…until I realized my headlights were on and decided to turn them off.  At that point the FM modulator simply stops working.  Apparently, the circuit I tapped into was directly tied to the headlights (how??).  So, since there wasn’t any other power source at the stereo itself that went on and off with the key, I had to run wiring over to the fuse block and try to pick up power there.  We (dad and I) found a source of power that did exactly what we wanted, hooked everything up and put it all back together, and it worked perfectly…until I shifted out of park.  So, at that point we were back to square one.  I started pokin’ around a bit more in the wiring right there at the fuse block and finally found the wiring for the “retained accessory power.”  We tied into that circuit and now everything works beautifully. 

I picked up Summer in Dallas Monday afternoon and we’ve been bummin’ around since.  It’s been good.

Oh, and Summer wrote that last post.  I have no idea what she meant.

~ by banjoben on December 19, 2007.