Ya hooked your new radio's ground wire to the ground wire in the car's gray plug didn't you?
There's no ground wire in the plugs; that's why they have a ground wire or braided strap bolted to the back of the radio. The black and orange wires are for the dash lights and the tail lights. Voltage on the tail light wire tells the display to dim. The amount of voltage on the dash light wire tells the display how much to dim. By connecting these to the new radio, those circuits become grounded through the antenna cable.
Cut and seal the ends of the orange and black wires, then run a new ground wire for the radio. If the dash lights still don't work, replace the dimmer assembly. It is a complicated, unreliable, unnecessary computer module that COULD be burned out by shorting the circuit to ground.
Caradiodoc
Sunday, April 5th, 2009 AT 4:42 AM