Antenna...now dome light flickers (1 Viewer)

[NearJetties]

It was a major pain removing the cheap antenna the PO installed...of course another simple job becomes a pain. It stuck up 6” when folded down and was starting to rust so I’m swapping it for an OEM manual antenna.

I expected to see an unplugged harness for the original stock power antenna but found much more. I came across some wiring the isn’t stock and looks to be remnants of something no longer in use. Also, a box (maybe a relay?) with spade connectors.

Is this related to the modern Pioneer Bluetooth headunit? I don’t think it’s stock but maybe it’s spliced into something.

The only thing I disconnected was the antenna input BUT now my dome light flickers for some reason....UGH.

The truck started fine and the modern Pioneer Bluetooth headunit powered on fine. I didn’t test it further tough.

I need to pull up the wiring diagrams. Any thoughts?

my initial thought is wtf.

 

[NearJetties]

Working through this here since I’m no expert at auto electrical. Chime in if you can—worst case it’s here for people noobs like me in the future.

It looks like the dome light is unrelated to anything I was near which makes sense. Maybe the flicker was just a coincidence?

It’s going like a strobe light though with the door switch and didn’t light upwhen I switched it to on. Tapping on it didn’t do anything and haven’t had probs in the past.

 

[NearJetties]

The more detailed schematics seem to confirm that as well. Note this is one schematic page broken into 4 screenshots.

 

[NearJetties]

The little ‘b’ indicates a ground in the right front fender. There isn’t one related to the interior lights.

the is what I’m guessing is a positive supply line big ‘B’ that it ties into. There is no key describing Being like there was for ‘b’....hmm. Is Bad also in the right front fender? Double hmm.

edit: big ‘B’ goes to the battery. I also fiddled with the positive battery wires and zip tied the positive terminal cover back on. Maybe I jiggled loose something that was a poor connection?

the positive wiring connections at the battery are a bit ratty but not the worst I’ve seen documented on mud.

 

[cruiserpants]

I also have an 89 FJ62. So, I removed the washer fluid container to see if mine resembles your picture.
Your hunch is right, the wiring is not stock; it appears to be some kind of relay. My guess would be that it's from an early, aftermarket, electric antenna or an aftermaket stereo system. Try to trace the wires and see where they lead.

 

[NearJetties]

I also have an 89 FJ62. So, I removed the washer fluid container to see if mine resembles your picture.
Your hunch is right, the wiring is not stock; it appears to be some kind of relay. My guess would be that it's from an early, aftermarket, electric antenna or an aftermaket stereo system. Try to trace the wires and see where they lead.

thanks for taking a look!

Do you think a modern head unit would require something like that?

 

[cruiserpants]

It’s not unreasonable that a head unit would have something like that. Relays are used for many things from stereo’s to alarm systems.
Have you removed the screw for the relay to see if it has a company stamp or number on it?
Also, you may be able to simply follow the wires to give you an indication of what their connected to.
Good luck...

 

[cruiserpants]

By the way, I only meant 'unbolt' the relay, to look at it, not remove it from it's harness.

 

[NearJetties]

Digging into it further but going to have to table it for tonight.

the dome light may have been a coincidence. Noticed when I took the cover off only have the diodes were flickering on and off. Pulled it out and the soldered on contact/cap fell off. Decided to move forward installing the new antenna since.

installed new antenna. Go to test it and now my clock and head unit are dead. Wtf.

the only other thing I did was snip out the old looking power cable. It wasn’t connected to anything when the headunit was turning on.

relays that were tucked in behind the fender. Red arrow was what I snipped and photo of what was snipped below. It went under the air box andwasn’t connected to anything (I’m pretty certain). I know for a fact it wasn’t directly connected to the battery.

ugh, this was not what I expected from a 30 minute antenna replacement.

@emorth might need to hire you

 

[NearJetties]

It’s clearly isolated to this circuit. Need to find a color coded diagram for the factory wires.

still trying to contemplate the purpose of the 3 relays for a simple head unit. Maybe it’s old and I don’t need it and just need to close the power antenna circuit. Still so confused by this thou

what makes me think that:
-I don’t recall seeing any non-OEM wires behind the glove box when I was in there pretty deep revamping the
-the yellow and white non-OE wires (or the brown, forget which) were snipped and taped off
-the power line the relays were switching (the red one I trimmed back) wasn’t connected to the battery (pretty sure at least)

thanks for listening to me think out loud and maybe I just blew the fuse . I’m thinking I knocked loose one of those janky looking splices though.

 

[NearJetties]

New discoveries:

-the 3 aftermarket relays only tie into up/down wires for the factory antenna (light blue and light blue-white wires) and there is a third after market black wire going into the relays/through the dash. Guessing that is a trigger or something from the headunit so the radio has to be on for the antenna to move
-surprisingly the cigarette lighter still charges my iPhone. Didn’t expect that to work.
-pulled off the kick panel in the passenger footwell. Everything is virgin OEM in there.

pulling the headunit now

 

[NearJetties]

Good news is the headunit was installed nicely
with a harness and no splicing. Confirms those random relays can come out.

bad news is....wtf is wrong. Still stumped.

It’s fused through the cig lighter fuse which looked good and still works.

Oddly, the antenna wasn’t even plugged into the headunit. There was a plug near the fire that I assumed went to the radio but nope. Must still be residual from the old aftermarket power antenna.

got the multimeter out but not really sure what to do next.

starting to think it might actually be related to crunching the fusible link wires with a zip tie before I started all this.

 

[NearJetties]

Decide to troubleshoot the clock first since it’s a
-12v at the solid red
-jumping all over at the red-black which goes through the dome fuse

ah ha! I thought it was weird there was only one fuse through the cig lighter for the whole circuit.

Didn’t notice the fine print until now on the clock that it does in fact go through the dome light....which has its own fuse...and it was blown! I hadn’t checked that one of course.

looks like we’re back in business.

although this was immensely frustrating and I pulled apart the dash I was able to:
-get rid of that janky old wiring from a previous aftermarket power antenna
-verify all the wiring to the new headunit the PO had installed was above board
-realized I would have had to pull it anyway to get the new antenna hooked up
-and got to practice my electrical skills and learn more about the truck

Hopefully it’ll help someone in the future.

 

[cruiserpants]

Congrats and very nicely done!