Craig radio fuse

[Aleksander]

While trouble shooting why my radio is dead I found that the glass fuse on the Light Green White cable was blown.
I changed it and the radio worked a short minute. Now the fuse blows while I change it.

Is this a 5 amp fuse?

Anybody else encountered this problem?

Can I go for a 10 amp fuse?

All advices welcome

[ccurzio]

The light green wire should be taking a 5 amp fuse.

Do you have anything else on that circuit?

[Aleksander]

Everything should be stock. The car only has 4335 miles on it, has been in storage most of its life.

[Jonathan]

How quickly does the fuse blow?

Is a "short moment" basically immediately after turning it on, or can you play a song or two and then five or ten minutes later it blows?

If it is blowing immediately, I would expect there to be a short somewhere. Meaning, somewhere along that green wire, the insulation got worn away and it is touching directly on to something metal. If this is the glass inline fuse up behind the stereo head unit, you want to look along that green wire AFTER the fuse (between the fuse and the Craig head unit) as opposed to before it. Which should make your search easier because there are no other components on that wire after the glass fuse other than the radio.

If the short is somewhere before the glass fuse, you might see the other things on main fuse #11 not working. Those being the power windows, AC panel lamps and gear selector light bulb (if you have an auto trans). Do any of those things not work also?

[David T]

How quickly does the fuse blow?

Is a "short moment" basically immediately after turning it on, or can you play a song or two and then five or ten minutes later it blows?

If it is blowing immediately, I would expect there to be a short somewhere. Meaning, somewhere along that green wire, the insulation got worn away and it is touching directly on to something metal. If this is the glass inline fuse up behind the stereo head unit, you want to look along that green wire AFTER the fuse (between the fuse and the Craig head unit) as opposed to before it. Which should make your search easier because there are no other components on that wire after the glass fuse other than the radio.

If the short is somewhere before the glass fuse, you might see the other things on main fuse #11 not working. Those being the power windows, AC panel lamps and gear selector light bulb (if you have an auto trans). Do any of those things not work also?

If you are talking about the in-line fuse near the radio and it blows, the radio should not be drawing 5 amps. The thing to do would be to put a meter on it and see just what it is drawing and if it is over 3 amps there is a problem inside the radio. The Craig (and for that matter the ASI too) are not worth fixing unless originality is important to you. If the radio is in bad shape the speakers are also probably shot. The Craig especially is not worth fixing because the display goes bad. It is hooked up through a flexible circuit board and it cracks. There are still shops that can fix it (and the ASI) but it isn't cheap. I just had my ASI serviced and it cost $100 but to get the cassette tape transport mechanism rebuilt (all of the rubber is bad and has to be custom made) would have cost another $400. The most cost effective thing to do is replace the speakers, the wiring, get the DIN adapter and put something modern in with GPS, USB, Satellite, and CD. All depends on what your budget is and how much you will be using the car. Even on a good day when the Craig was working it won't receive a weak signal and puts out a whopping 20 watts per channel!

[Aleksander]

The first time it played for about a minute, when I changed it after that it blew immediately.
It's the glass fuse, so will take a closer look at the LGW between the fuse and the unit tomorrow.

The cigarette lighter don't seem to work, nor the antenna. It's supposed to go up when the radio is turned on?

[Aleksander]

I had hoped to enjoy the Craig for a year or two, before updating to a newer system. But if the cost will be ridicules I have to reconsider.

[Jonathan]

The first time it played for about a minute, when I changed it after that it blew immediately.
It's the glass fuse, so will take a closer look at the LGW between the fuse and the unit tomorrow.

The cigarette lighter don't seem to work, nor the antenna. It's supposed to go up when the radio is turned on?

The cigar lighter is supposed to be on a different fuse (#17) than the radio. When you say it doesn't work, is it the small lamp bulb that "lights" up the plastic ring around it that isn't coming on? Or the main heater part in the middle if you push down on the button? That's fairly easy to correct, but lets stick to the radio for the time being.

My car had the Craig, but not a rear antenna. So without saying for certain, yes, I believe the antenna is supposed to come up when you turn it on. That being said, if your fuse blowing problem is not a short in the light green/white wire, it might be the motor in the antenna trying to make the mast go up and it's hung up on something and the fuse is blowing to protect it. Not sure about that as I had thought the power antenna pulled it's up and down power from somewhere else (someone could confirm please?)

Perhaps a test could be if you have a way of selecting the tape function and not the radio to stop the antenna from trying to come up and then seeing if the unit stays on with the tape only playing? (not sure this is possible mind you).

[jwrayth]

So without saying for certain, yes, I believe the antenna is supposed to come up when you turn it on. That being said, if your fuse blowing problem is not a short in the light green/white wire, it might be the motor in the antenna trying to make the mast go up and it's hung up on something and the fuse is blowing to protect it. Not sure about that as I had thought the power antenna pulled it's up and down power from somewhere else (someone could confirm please?)

Power antenna is supposed to go up with the radio turning on, and go down with the radio turning off or the ignition going off (or more accurately, when the ignition goes off the radio loses power and so does it's output to the antenna). The antenna has a separate (always live?) power feed to allow it to retract when the ignition goes off, and just takes a signal feed from the radio.

[Szabi]

Hello, I have the following problem: my original Craig radio suddenly stopped working (while playing a casette), although it is not totally dead. When I turn it on, the small green arrow will light up that shows the casette playing direction. But I cannot hear the motor turning the casette, so that part is not working at all. It will not eject the casette when turning off, so I am not sure the FM radio would work. The other `sign of life` is that I can hear the antenna-motor working but the antenna does not come out. Fuse is OK, everything else is working on that fuse. I checked the wire connections, all good, and I even tried with another radio harness (#110683) that I had on hand.

Reading back in this topic, I understand there should be a 5 Amp fuse on the light green-white wire, I do not have it for sure (I removed the central console and have clear access to all wires now). But I have this thing on the wires coming out from the radio, I`d bet this was added later (?):
http://m.blog.hu/de/delorean/image/craigdsc01746.JPG

Either way, lack of the 5 Amp fuse might have killed something in the radio? What do you think?