Weird radio power mod

[sdg3205]

So i'm working on a new barn car and couldn't figure out why the clock and HVAC lights wouldn't work. I did some digging and found this:

For some reason a power wire was spliced directly from fuse 11 (for HVAC lights, radio, clock etc) to the radio 12v harness. As you can see, they spliced in the power window switches along the way, but of course the clock and HVAC lights remain inoperable.

In the fuse box picture, you can see the crudely spliced/taped wire and then the original wire down further just hanging in the breeze.

I'm not sure yet why they did this. First thing I'll do is revert back to stock and see what I get. Typically i find it works just fine and I never figure out the motivation behind mods like this.

Hypothesis anyone?

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[robvanderveer]

Welcome to the concept that is called PO (Previous Owner).

You are doing the best thing here by reverting it to stock. In the last few years I have made some wiring adjustments myself (for example, a splice for footwell lighting). I have them all documented and I keep an up-to-date copy of the the modifications with the paperwork of the car for future reference.

[sdg3205]

So I reverted everything back to stock and in the process, discovered why the mod was done in the first place:

One of the HVAC lamp sockets had become jammed in the teeth of the temperature switch, which would have shorted out fuse 11 over and over again.

One quick test proved the HVAC lamps, clock, radio, defrost and windows now work as originally intended.

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[robvanderveer]

good find, good fix!

by the way, one of your pictures just made it into my wallpaper collection.

[sdg3205]

good find, good fix!

by the way, one of your pictures just made it into my wallpaper collection.

Which one?! those are pretty boring pictures!

[robvanderveer]

#3 from your first post. The slightly out of focus wires mess. I'll cover it with a glass frost effect , that,ll lookgood on my mac.

[sdg3205]

#3 from your first post. The slightly out of focus wires mess. I'll cover it with a glass frost effect , that,ll lookgood on my mac.

That was a hard one to re-splice! Not with electrical tape either, but a proper splice connector and shrink tube!

[robvanderveer]

for my radio, i bought a proper ISO connector and soldered the wires.