Just happily bought a '89 n/a Vert with 86k on it. I was driving it home last night and.......here is the fun part. The Clock seems to come on when the motor is running but starts at 1:00. The door ajar light seems to brighten and dim at will. the radio would come on but no readout. I had to guess what station. The clockand door ajar seem to be controlled by the burned out dome light switch. In other words I tried to see why the dome light wasn't on and in the process watched the clock and door ajar switch on and off according to the switch on the dome light. Fun!

 

That could be as simple as a burnt out LCD. If the radio experienced extreme heat or prolong dirrect sunlight this can easily occur. But good news, if the faceplate is removable (IE: aftermarket player) you might just beable to order one from said company.

The rest sound like you'll have on hell of a troubleshooting job ahead.

 

replace the room fuse... it is burnt/blown/missing...

and don't pay attention to the newbies that say you have a burnt out LCD

 

I said on the RADIO not the pannel. The pannels sound to me like a shitty rewire job. A duct tape and superglue job in otherwords. If it were a fuse there none of the idiot-lights would come on. even a "noob" knows this is true of ALL vehicles. Its a standard for vehicle saftey in the US! As I said before, you need to get a multimeter and try to figure out where your short is coming from.

Now, if it were a fuse on radio the whole thing would be off 100% of the time. There is no fuse for the Faceplate unless its a massivly expensive system in rage of $600-????, and even then you would have to use a jewlers set to open it. Is the radio stock or aftermarket?

 

The stock radio uses the dome/room light as back up and power for the display.

When the room fuse is bad... no display.

Further more that same fuse is used for back up on the clock in the idiot panel. When it is blown, the CPU can back feed a signal down through the door switches amd to the panel causing exactly what he describes.

Please don't answer if you don't know... guessing or making stuff up only hurts other members who read such replies and think they are true.

 

And just for your own information... the idiot panel gets power from the ACC (accessory key position) circuit, battery circuit (through the dome/room fuse) and through the ignition. So parts of the panel do continue to work if part of the power to it is bad.

Of course the radio also gets power from the ACC circuit as well as dome room fuse. Unlike many aftermarket radios the stock system can still work without the battery power source, just not perfectly.

 

OK, I got the dome light (the old one fell apart upon removal) I plugged in the new and.......nothing. No dome light. BUT! the door ajar light does not come on anymore. The clock and stereo lights doe not come on. Also the stereo and clock reset each time the key is turned off. Is there a lead broken somewhere. I found a schematics on this board and I printed it. If you have and idea of how which lead to check I would really appreciate it.

 

Is the fuse that Icemark was talking about OK? If you put a new one in, did it blow again?

The wire color from the fuse in an S4 is blue/red stripe, don't know if the S5's are the same though..

 

Okay, I have defeated myself. I was consulting my boy Mark about this today (I have the FC in getting a head-to-toe prepurchase inspection) and he slapped me on the back of the head for not knowing. Icemark is right check your fuses. 1st, I was assuming your stereo was aftermarket. Maybe it’s just me but I cannot fathom owning a vehicle of that age without some stereo mods. 2nd, I really don’t have the FC in my possession yet so my knowledge is limited, but Mark is fixing that! I'll have the FC in my possession by the weekend and then the real fun begins

 

The Car is bone stock. Even down to the Pioneer radio that came stock. Nobody has been inside the car. everything is original

 

OK, Here is the scoop. The dome light/fuse was bad I replaced it but nothing happened. I looked for a day for other fuses and finally found that panel WWWWAAAYYYYY in the back of the drivers legs area ( I know you experinced guys are laughing about now) The fuse-fuse was burned out. I replaced it finally at 10:10 tonight (Long story about why so late) WOW, The dash lit up like it was supposed to. Icemark was right, there are a lot of systems that depend on that one curcuit. The radio has memory and the clock keeps time and the dome light works and the door ajar light goes out when the doors are close!! Go figure.......Thanks guys this problem would have lead me around for days. Who knows what I would have taken apart trying to "fix" the problem.

This board is great!!! You guys are what make it great!!

John Hammons!

 

haha

knowing me, i would of rewired the whole car by now

i hate when little things cause big problems

lol