Thread: HERE is a weird electrical problem (interior)

There are 2 issues here, the car is a '92 SE-R.

First, one day I started up the car and the CD player which had been working fine didn't turn on like it always did. So I thought it was the CD player. I also noticed that the clock in the gauge cluster lit up but did not show the time (that never happened before either). So I got a brand new CD player, this one powered on but no sound came thru the speakers.

Now here's where it gets weirder - the interior dome light in the car has never worked, I changed bulbs and even got new dome assemblies but nothing. And here's the strange part. When you turn the ignition/accessories on, if the dome light switch was already in the middle setting (to light up when a door opens) the gauge cluster clock illuminates and shows 1:00. But as soon as you flip the dome light switch to either on or off, the time display on the clock dissapears, but it stays illuminated. If the dome switch is then set back to the middle setting, the gauge clock again shows 1:00 and you can set it to whatever time you want.. but as soon as you flick the dome light switch to on or off, the time display dissapears. Then, if you put the dome light switch back into the middle setting, the clock comes back on but is set back to 1:00 again, regardless of what time you set it to before.

And to add more bizarness, the clock displayed the 1:00 time when the new head unit was wired in, but as soon as the wiring harness was disconnected from the back of the head unit the time display went away but it remained illuminated.

Really stumped on this one, and whether or not it has something to with the cd player.

Anyone?

Sounds like a grounding issue. With the door open the dome light is grounded, and this may be enough to back feed a ground to the other accessories. Try grounding the radio's chassis and see if that makes anything better. Also check fuses.

Wow. I'm going through the same issue, but w/o the dome light issue. Weird

Thanks, okay, so where exactly is the ground at regarding the stereo?

There are several grounds in the dash area. There should be one in each kick panel, and one up near the center of the dash up by the windshield that goes to one of the brake pedal brackets.