A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

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neppi
I am merely driving my van
I am merely driving my van
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A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by neppi »

Hello from snowy Finland!

No smalltalk, but straight to business, sorry! Ü

I bought an Astro AWD 1996 (dunno the submodel, factory bus, no gadgets) about a year ago, and today (!) had time to start to try to find out why the dash-lights are not working. No, it's not a bulb thing.

Pulled the cluster out and found this (see the pics attached) behind the radio.

What is it? Some factory option-gadget-wire-thing, or did some former owner of the rig make a practical joke?

The front speakers are working (somebody has changed them to some Sony's) but their wires are not original. The rear speakers don't work, but there are no DIN wires anywhere inside the dash. Unless they are the wires we're looking at here. But. The colours don't match, atleast not all of them, and there are more cables in this bunch, than in the DIN-thing. It's got, for example two similar light green wires and two darker green wires, one solid and one with white stripe.

You guys know, so share your wisdom with a rookie.

Thanks!

And thank you for such an incredible forum!

Neppi

(If this is not the right place for this message, feel free to move it somewhere more suitable, thanks!)
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LiftedAWDAstro
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Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by LiftedAWDAstro »

I can't answer directly but timelessbeing has some wiring diagrams posted in this link.
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WoodButcher
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Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by WoodButcher »

Lifted found them for you, 1996 wiring.pdf, scroll down to page 34.
I'll take bets the guy that installed the new radio had no clue. I'd be a little surprised that the radio lights were actually needed to complete the circut for the dash but hey, who knows?, maybe the same engineer that designed my christmas lights worked on the '96 astro. One burned bulb the whole string goes out..... :axe:
'93 Safari shorty, 350 swap
'05 Astro AWD, lifted, 6 liter, cammed, ported and programmed for fast.
'69 G10, straight 6, 3 onatree, jumped at me when I had a pocketful of cash looking for a spare astro. :)

Topic author
neppi
I am merely driving my van
I am merely driving my van
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:13 pm

Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by neppi »

Thanks guys for the quick replys!

I'll check the diaghrams. I'm not too familiar with such things, I know how to read them, right, but I'd rather have someone with me next to the ticking bomb pointing "cut this one, the other ones make it go Boooom".

I think it might have been the same engineer who decided you don't need the inside handles in the back doors of the bigger Chevy's.

Neppi

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neppi
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Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by neppi »

OK, now I've connected all the wires possible to the radio. Helped a LOT with the rear-speaker problem! Now they work. I also got rid of about a mile of DIY cables n wires that were all over the place.

I still have few questions. I'm still left with four cables I don't know where they belong to.

At first, there's a grey-one that's also in the radio diaghrams. It says "-> interior lights systems" in the diaghram. That don't excist in the DIN-thing coming from the radio. What should I put there? A ground? Or is the Sony missing a wire?

A light green. Slightly differend thickness than the one going to the front speaker. I've actually got two cut light green wires, 'cause I didn't connect the original front speaker cables, but was happy with the new ones the guy had put there (maybe partly because there is a pair of well working speakers at the other end of them, lol).

One dark green w/ white stripe.

A pink.

What do I do with these cables? Was there separate radio-cass and cd so some of these would go there? Or some original subwoofer option or so?

I'm mostly concerned about the grey one, 'cause I'm still missing the dash-lights and it said "light center" on the diaghram.

Thanks heaps for your help so far! It's been very… ummm… helpful! Ü

Neppi
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Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by WoodButcher »

Sounds right, you should have 4 left from the front speakers and the one for the dimmer for the stock radio lights. Like I joked about before that dimmer wire I also have an aftermarket radio in my '97 that is not used so I would suggest another problem. Cap it off. If your dash lights work properly that wire should be hot when the dash lights are on, variable voltage according to the dimmer. A fuse perhaps, the dimmer or the switch itself.

A side note to keep in mind when troubleshooting that the lights and door switches are wired always hot, the switches at the doorjambs simply make ground.
'93 Safari shorty, 350 swap
'05 Astro AWD, lifted, 6 liter, cammed, ported and programmed for fast.
'69 G10, straight 6, 3 onatree, jumped at me when I had a pocketful of cash looking for a spare astro. :)

Topic author
neppi
I am merely driving my van
I am merely driving my van
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:13 pm

Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by neppi »

The Sony has a pink (was it pink?) wire that says "dimmer" on it, but the diaghram (the original radio) has two wires going to the "lights center", grey and purple/white. Which one should I connect to the Sony pink-one? And leave the other one out, right?

And I wasn't clear enough (it's midnight here, sorry! Ü ), I've got four cut wires (pnk,lt grn, gry, drk grn/wht) AND the four front speaker wires that I didn't need to connect. So altogether eight cut loose wire-ends inside my dash which might or might not cause a fire at anytime now. Ü

Fuses have been checked atleast 216 times, dimmer/light switch new (that was the first thing I did after the fuses-check since I had one brand new lying around. I've cross-checked with three differend switches just to make sure). Ü

The juice comes to the switch and leaves the switch as it should. Didn't have time yet to meter it anywhere else. Or I actually tried, but my meter died before I got further than the Dimmer... Ü

Now I've got a Fluke, but no time… except bedtime!

to be continued…

Neppi

Topic author
neppi
I am merely driving my van
I am merely driving my van
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Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:13 pm

Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by neppi »

HA!

I was too busy to scroll-down to the next diaghram, which showed all the empty wires still left. So there was the answer. Now I´ve got the radio right (and I know what to do with the extra wires) but still no dash-lights...

I´ve checked fuses, bulbs, the swich. What´s left? Wires? I´ll work on that...

What´s " Interior Lights System" ? Where is it located and what´s inside of it?



Thanks!

Neppi
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Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by WoodButcher »

I think you'd want to be looking at pages 20-21 in the 1996 wiring PDF as they are the guage cluster.
'93 Safari shorty, 350 swap
'05 Astro AWD, lifted, 6 liter, cammed, ported and programmed for fast.
'69 G10, straight 6, 3 onatree, jumped at me when I had a pocketful of cash looking for a spare astro. :)

Topic author
neppi
I am merely driving my van
I am merely driving my van
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:13 pm

Re: A bunch of cut wires behind the radio, AWD -96

Post by neppi »

I just realized it's not a Sony, but LG! Ü

Fooled us all!

Thank you all for helping me out with this (and much more! Now I've got the diaghrams!!!). You guys rock!

Somebody had spliced some wires. Fixed it and now I've got a working sound system AND dash-lights!

Thank's again!
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