Just bought 89 V3500 Crew, electrical issue

[89 V3500]

I just bought this 1989 V3500 Crew with 41k on it. I am having the following issues, that were not present a year ago when I looked at it last.

If you open the door the radio resets like it has been disconnected
If you turn on the dome light with the switch, the radio also resets
If you hit a bump the radio resets
If you wiggle the column shifter the same issue happens

At seemingly the same time all 4 power windows have quit working.

Is there a common ground to all of this, or harness that could be loose? I am trying to narrow down my search.

Thank you.

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[foamypirate]

There is a ground "buss" that bolts to the driver side of the cab, up under the dash. If that came loose, you could see all sorts of issues, several circuits ground there.

 

[89 V3500]

There is a ground "buss" that bolts to the driver side of the cab, up under the dash. If that came loose, you could see all sorts of issues, several circuits ground there.

Thank you, sounds like a pretty good spot to start today

 

[bucket]

My old '90 Burb had symptoms #1 and #2. It simply turned out to be a bad fuse in the panel. I don't recall if #3 or #4 happened at all. I know the windows always worked.

 

[89 V3500]

My old '90 Burb had symptoms #1 and #2. It simply turned out to be a bad fuse in the panel. I don't recall if #3 or #4 happened at all. I know the windows always worked.

After testing a bunch of wires and connections I finally took the door apart and the windows started working. The switch housing is cracked, and wires must have been loose.

Now to chase down the radio. I haven't found a bad fuse yet, but I didn't look at all of them.

 

[bucket]

After testing a bunch of wires and connections I finally took the door apart and the windows started working. The switch housing is cracked, and wires must have been loose.

Now to chase down the radio. I haven't found a bad fuse yet, but I didn't look at all of them.

Yeah, I don't remember what the fuse was actually for. But I didn't suspect it would cause the problem. Evidently, the radio is able to pull constant power from some other circuit until the dome lights come on.

 

[HotRodPC]

Sounds like it's a POS. Why don't you just let me haul that thing off for you and get rid of the headache???

OK, so you have the windows working now. I was going to suggest, many times, on the windows, the ground junction above the driver side kick panel screwed into the sheetmetal, will lose connection or get a little rusty and keep the power windows from working too. It's like just behind the dash above the plastic kickpanel if you ever need to find it.

 

[89 V3500]

Yeah, I don't remember what the fuse was actually for. But I didn't suspect it would cause the problem. Evidently, the radio is able to pull constant power from some other circuit until the dome lights come on.

The Horn Fuse... I just replaced it and the radio, horn, dome lights everything started working normally and as expected.

In looking at it, they had a bigger fuse in there, I'm wondering if they were pulling power for the trailer brake controller through that circuit somehow. While chasing this down I found a 6' length of trailer brake controller wire burned up and laying on the frame rail but no associated fuses, and the damn battery kept going dead. Everyone was lucky it did not catch fire.

Sounds like it's a POS. Why don't you just let me haul that thing off for you and get rid of the headache???

OK, so you have the windows working now. I was going to suggest, many times, on the windows, the ground junction above the driver side kick panel screwed into the sheetmetal, will lose connection or get a little rusty and keep the power windows from working too. It's like just behind the dash above the plastic kickpanel if you ever need to find it.

I'm not the best electrically, but I never expected the radio to mess up because the horn fuse blew, when I found that I was just rolling my eyes.

I think it's close to good now, the windows worked great, just need to replace the switch bezel and maybe the switch. I left it hanging out of the door for now.