Radio and Lights

[katsi]

I had a great 15 minutes last night crusing around in the Fiat untill something happened.
The radio quit and the lights went out at the exact same time. None of the fuses were blown.

Here is how I hooked up the radio
Radio power (Red)-> Brown wire in radio jack
Radio Ground (Black) -> White \Black wire in radio jack
Radio memory power (Yellow) -> Brown wire in radio jack - No memory when key is turned off I know.
Speakers to spreakers

Anyway, Everything else still workes fine except the dash lights started working really well in the "running lights only" position (running lights work as well in this position). Lights on position, everything shuts down - no running lights, no head lights, not dash lights.

What kind of horrible thing did I do? Did I blow the light switch by running both the red and yellow to the same power?

Please help, the family went on a vacation and I have untill friday untill I have to meet up with them so I got some time to play with it untill Thursday.

[rlux4]

Excuse me for being dense Katsi, but I'm not following how you hooked up your radio. What radio jack? What wire, on the car, did you use for power to the radio? Also, I've seen these GBC fuses that looked good by eye, but be bad. Or, the contacts at the fuse panel could use cleaning and tightening.
Ron

[katsi]

Im my car, thier is a plastic plug (looks like all the rest of the plastic plugs) inside the dash pannel where the radio goes. It's to plug in the stock radio. It has one power (brown) one ground (white\black) and 4 speaker wires going into it. The new radios have 2 power wires. 1 for power and the other for memmory (Red and Yellow). I hooked both of these up to the brown wire for power and assumed that the draw was too much and that's what blew the lights. My reasoning behind this was that the brown wire (power) is fed from the ignition switch via the light blue wire that goes to the light switch. Ignition switch (light blue) -> Hooks up to Brown at light switch and runs to the radio plug via the turn signal.

Anyway, the radio had nothing to do with the lights going out. When I first purchased the car last week, the lights were a dim yellow. I now know that they were shorting out and by me messing with the radio, I ultimatly turned that small short into a complete fry! The ignition switch was sending power to the light blue wire but, that wire was shorting to the main power wire (brown) inside the plug. The plug melted inside and you could not see it from the outside - looked normal. Anyway, I wrestled the plug apart last night and the male part of the plug was fried. Ditched the plug all together and made proper connections with the ignition switch. Lights are really bright now

I hope that explains it.

[rlux4]

So, your lights work, but the radio isn't hooked back up yet?
The yellow wire on the radio for memory doesn't draw very much power, less than an amp, but you could be right, it may be a problem that it and the red one were both connected to the same source. I gave up trying to find a wire in the rats nest behind the console that had constant power and ended up extending the yellow wire over to the fuse panel area. There are a couple of wires behind it that aren't on the ignition switch.
Ron

[katsi]

Actually, I found that you could use the wire going to the cigarrette lighter for the yellow. I works really well AND it has that really cool inline fuse. So, you are kinda protected there. Anyway, knock wood, everything is working properly now.