no power seats, power windows, power locks or power sunroof working

I just recently got a 96 supercharged buick.

anyway I went to swap my sound system and a while back the whole dash wire harness melted because a crimp connection in my trunk failed and made a bad short. The head unit wire harness didn't look too damaged other than the one red ignition wire had some melted insulation but all the the actual wires were fine and I put liquid tape on it and it worked fine in my old 1997 L36 Buick.

but when I wired up the sound system the same exact way in the 96 super buick, I never got the radio to turn on quite right. either it would turn on and never have memory saved, or if
I wired it properly it would make one of the thermal fuses in the trip on and off about as fast as a turn signal with an impedance problem blinking too fast

anyway I thought I knew how the head unit gets wired..thought I knew almost the whole pinout of the concert II diagram so I felt pretty retarded and thought maybe the head unit was breaking because the harness always worked even with the red ignition wire problem thing

anyway I ended up splicing into the same wire as the red ignition wire in the head unit harness behind the connector knowing I could easily solder it back together and it would be as good as new to bypass the one burned wire, and it still didn't work

but I noticed after I tried that, mywindows, powerlocks, my sunroof and seat motors won't work, Itest every fuse in the car that could with a test light. and none of them are bad but with the test light it shows a few fuses bad that are actually good fuses in the driver panel fuse box.

is it possible for that thermal fuse in the back seat going bad to do this or should I replace my entire dash wire harness again? I unspliced the wire in the dash harness and soldered it intp a crimp connector so that wire should be as good as new?

it was probably stupid to not buy the new head unit harness but it did work in my old buik for over a year no problem. I just have no idea how to go about fixing this. I already know how to replace the entire dash wire harness if need be.

________

Update: power mirrors wont work, and the power locks work if I put it in drive, then itlocks, and putting in park unlocks but the door buttons wont but I lost my clicker and cant test that.

the head unit and stereo work perfect with the new head unit harness so I think maybe it could be a thermal fuse or the short circuit but I have no idea

Hi Corey.

First step is to un-do your wiring changes.

Second - your test light is probably not lying to you. If you pull those fuses and test them with a meter they could test bad even if they don't look bad. Sometimes fuses blow funny that way. Anyway if they test bad, after you un-do those wiring changes then replace the fuses with good ones same ratings.

Once it's back to Factory and you have good fuses -- then consider doing this: wire the new system to 2 different hot wires. Wire the hi power part thru a relay.

In general what you do:

- for the part of the sound system that needs power even when car is off (the tuner I presume) you can wire that theu the OEM radio circuit. If you check at a big auto parts store you should be able to get a gadget that will plug into and piggy back power off a fuse in the fuse panel. Use that to route power from the cig lighter or some such circuit (just like the OE radio does).

- for the part of the sound system that needs power only when the car is on/running just wire up a relay such that the relay contacts close when the car's ACC power is on. Then thru the contact of the relay run power directly form the (+) power point under the hood to your radio and amp. That way if you have a problem the problem is isolated, by the relay, to the new circuit and by using heavy wiring components you can run a lot of power like 30,40,50 amps or what have you to that amplifier.


Albertj

c0reyl wrote:

I just recently got a 96 supercharged buick.

anyway I went to swap my sound system and a while back the whole dash wire harness melted because a crimp connection in my trunk failed and made a bad short. The head unit wire harness didn't look too damaged other than the one red ignition wire had some melted insulation but all the the actual wires were fine and I put liquid tape on it and it worked fine in my old 1997 L36 Buick.

but when I wired up the sound system the same exact way in the 96 super buick, I never got the radio to turn on quite right. either it would turn on and never have memory saved, or if
I wired it properly it would make one of the thermal fuses in the trip on and off about as fast as a turn signal with an impedance problem blinking too fast

anyway I thought I knew how the head unit gets wired..thought I knew almost the whole pinout of the concert II diagram so I felt pretty retarded and thought maybe the head unit was breaking because the harness always worked even with the red ignition wire problem thing

anyway I ended up splicing into the same wire as the red ignition wire in the head unit harness behind the connector knowing I could easily solder it back together and it would be as good as new to bypass the one burned wire, and it still didn't work

but I noticed after I tried that, mywindows, powerlocks, my sunroof and seat motors won't work, Itest every fuse in the car that could with a test light. and none of them are bad but with the test light it shows a few fuses bad that are actually good fuses in the driver panel fuse box.

is it possible for that thermal fuse in the back seat going bad to do this or should I replace my entire dash wire harness again? I unspliced the wire in the dash harness and soldered it intp a crimp connector so that wire should be as good as new?

it was probably stupid to not buy the new head unit harness but it did work in my old buik for over a year no problem. I just have no idea how to go about fixing this. I already know how to replace the entire dash wire harness if need be.

________

Update: power mirrors wont work, and the power locks work if I put it in drive, then itlocks, and putting in park unlocks but the door buttons wont but I lost my clicker and cant test that.

the head unit and stereo work perfect with the new head unit harness so I think maybe it could be a thermal fuse or the short circuit but I have no idea

Actually this is pretty ironic. It was all my fault for being stupid and not taking notes what I did. Turns out with the wiring, I did everything perfectly as usual. The half melted harness was just messed up with impedance due to corrosion or a burned wire somewhere most likely and when I heard the relay switches in the back of the car go apeshit, I pretty much took them out to see how it would change anything. My dumbass put the relays in the wrong spots not paying attention then forgot I even messed with the relay.

Then I still wired everything perfectly with the new harness, still had all the problems and everyone assumes it was my stereo naturally that messed it up, even when I was pretty sure I wired the stereo perfectly, which I was down about because I'm pretty good with sound equipment. Turns out I was ready to start making my own wiring system, completely fed up of what could be wrong and my step dad had an outrage at the idea, pulled out the 1400 or so some odd page manuals and flipped it open, poked around with my test light then jiggered with it for 5 mins and fixed it like nothing. I spent hours trying to figure it out too lol.

But then again he's a master technician and better than almost anyone Iv'e seen at electrical wiring. Kinda made me realize just how important service manuals are now. Iv'e gotten through every car problem Iv'e faced without a manual now, but I hit a point where more complicated things than standard stuff really need the service manual.

My engine building class helped me realize that too lol.

But yeah It's all fixed now as far as I know.