Hey guys I am having an issue suddenly with the radio in my 1985 F150. It has been working great for ages and the other day the battery died because I left the lights on overnight. I jumped the truck the next day and all of a sudden the radio will not power on at all.

I have checked the fuses both in the stereo and at the main fuse box and they are all fine and not blown. I am wondering if maybe there is an inline fuse or something that I am missing that maybe blew during the jump. I have also tried wiring up a new head unit to test if the old unit had just gone bad and there is no power going to the new unit either.

I am a bit stumped at this point and would appreciate any help anyone could give.

thanks

 

As a practical matter remember a jump start is an emergency procedure, the truck alternator is no substitute for battery charging once back home or whatever. This is important. Put it on 4 or 6 amps and leave it for overnight or 8 to 12 hours. A dead battery can smoke an alternator among other things, be kind to your electrical system, saves money. Not trying to beat up on you, just spreadin' the message.

While the battery is charging pull the radio out of the truck and see if it will work directly on 12 volts. Be careful and avoid sparks around a battery. If radio is inop maybe just find a good used replacement, they are probably five bucks or something and not worth spending a lot of time on fixing maybe? Does sound like there's no juice going in though.

 

First thing to do is juggle the ignition lock cylinder, turn it a bit towards yourself and see if it magically starts working; the spring-back assembly gets gummed up and sticky over the years and the key will sometimes not spring all the way to RUN from START by itself.

Might also see what happens with the key in ACC.

 

thanks for the feedback, I tried messing with lock cylinder and that did not do anything. Thanks for the suggestion though. I am wondering if there is a fused link that I need to look for that might have blown is there one or is it just hte fuses in the fuse box

 

In the earlier years, the yellow/black-hash wire was fed directly via Fuse 11 in the fuse box. the fusible links didn't apply to this stuff... I'm pretty sure your year is the same.

 

You are right. So just for kicks I went back and tried jiggling the lock cylinder. It worked great. Problem is gone, anything I can go to stop that from happening the future like ?

 

Disassemble and clean the lock cylinder's gear mechanism in the column as well as the ignition switch on the steering column behind the dash - might just replace that, they're pretty inexpensive ($10) but made in China these days so YMMV.