Underhood Radio Fuse Keeps Burning Out (Need Wiring Path Info)

[slipstream808]

So I'm at my wits end here. The radio fuse under the hood of my spyder keeps blowing out.

About a month ago I started my car and the radio turned on then off and went blank. Saw a little bit of smoke too!

But I looked and couldn't find any issue. The radio was dead and so were the automatic door locks. OK, so I pulled the radio. No help there as the fuses kept blowing. Pulled the whole dash out. I couldn't find anything wrong at all. Nothing was burnt. Yet something had to go wrong! But I tried to hook up a fuse and it worked. Radio worked. Everything worked.

Fast forward to a week ago and same problem, the radio dies. But the power locks work this time. Same thing, the fuse blows when the key is moved to the ON position even if the radio isn't hooked up.

Now I can decently follow the DSM Manual circuit diagram but I'm starting to thing I might as well just run my own power wire off the fuse box because I'm completely at a loss here!

Does anyone know where or how these power wires run for the radio? Is there a relay in there somewhere? Or some connection?

Thanks guys. I'm headed back to my car for now. Oh and FYI, the multimeter still reads at 3.7 amps and 12.5ish volts at the underhood fuse box. Is that normal to still blow the fuse then?

 

[92EagleAWD]

I had a VERY similar problem. It ended up being the illumination wire for the stock radio touching something metal and grounding out. Make absolutely sure there are NO wires hanging loose touching any metal. The only way i found the wire was to put a piece of metal in place of the fuse and left it untill i could tell which wire was burning. I dont reccomend trying that though.

 

[slipstream808]

Where was it grounding out at?

:UPDATE:

Well I had doubts but I took your advice just the same because I'm not a genius and DSMers help each other.

So I disconnected the dimmer switch and some other wires back there. I turned the key to on and the constant +12V red wire was putting out a consistent .25V. Now the ACC blue wire read +11.50V. So I'm thinking you might be right that it is the green illumination wire.

BUT, everything started working again. For no reason... same as before... *sigh* It make me happy its working but it isn't helping me track down issues.

I'm wondering, is there a completely certain way of disconnecting power to the green illumination wire? I mean by disconnecting the dimmer switch in the dash did I drop power from that wire? It wasn't giving voltage.