Is my radio dead or am I missing something?

[Devin Wright]

So, not long ago the battery in my 1995 Explorer XLT went bad and I had to replace it. So see if it was the battery. What I did was take the battery out of my dads truck, which has the same crank amps or whatever its called (can't think of it off the top of my head) and put it in my Explorer. Well, his battery is side-post and mine is top-post. I got the terminals mixed up, and put the negative to the positive and the positive to the negative. After the spark show and nearly ****ting myself, I put everything on correctly and my car cranked. After I got a new battery in, I noticed my radio wouldn't work. I just thought I killed my radio and I needed to get a new one. Last night I was driving home and I took a really good look at my radio and noticed other parts of it was still lit up (Link to pictures below). If my radio is dead, then why is the rest of it lit up? And if it's not, how do I fix this?

Before you say it, yes, I know the on/off button is pushed in, but it literally does nothing even if it is pushed in or out and it looks the same. I just have it pushed in for now. The screen that shows the time and radio station does not light up nor does the buttons on the bottom of the radio that's marked 1 through 6 light up either with the button in the on position. Also, with the button pushed in for the off position, the antenna stays out and does not retract.

PS: There is a cassette/aux conversion tape inside the cassette player. It would randomly get stuck in there and not wanna come out. But the radio would still work properly even if the cassette was in.

Link to pictures: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

 

[Mbrooks420]

You likely smoked it.

 

[96eb96]

Lucky you didn't take more electronics along with it, I think there is a diode protecting the PCM. The switch is a failure point. Radios are cheap. If you don't have the JBL system it is easy to swap.

 

[Spudhut]

I would agree with the above. Id check your fuses first and foremost - Under hood and on the side of dash.

If they are all good...yep...radio is smoked! Junk Yard radios are cheap!

 

[Devin Wright]

I would agree with the above. Id check your fuses first and foremost - Under hood and on the side of dash.

If they are all good...yep...radio is smoked! Junk Yard radios are cheap!

Lucky you didn't take more electronics along with it, I think there is a diode protecting the PCM. The switch is a failure point. Radios are cheap. If you don't have the JBL system it is easy to swap.

I do have the JBL System, how ****ed am I?

I've checked all the fuses. Only thing I was really confused about is how most of the radio is still lit up but those parts aren't.

 

[Mbrooks420]

Parts of it are probably damaged and some are working. I’m sure you can find a factory JBL radio. If not, worst case, you add an aftermarket head unit. For hooking up the battery backwards you got off fairly lucky in any case.

 

[1998Exp]

Radios don't necessarily fail when powered in reverse. Protecting from this is fairly basic (as someone pointed out, could be as simple as putting a diode in series- albeit at the cost of losing about 1V and dissipating the bit of heat from the diode). Ages ago I was on a business trip, and the battery died in our ancient Ford. My significant other took it somewhere for a new battery. When I returned, she told me that everything is fine after the battery replacement, except the radio doesn't work. I opened the hood and found out that they installed the new battery backwards. Turned it around, and the radio came to life. Of course, back then a radio was the only thing electronic in a car...

 

[Mbrooks420]

Radios were also far different then.

 

[96eb96]

I do have the JBL System, how ****ed am I?

I've checked all the fuses. Only thing I was really confused about is how most of the radio is still lit up but those parts aren't.

It is probably one of if not THE most difficult cars on the road to install an aftermarket radio. You have run wires to the back of the truck, there is a kit but you have to take a lot of stuff apart. They did away with it in 98. What you see in the front is not a radio, but a head unit that talks to the "radio", in the back. The antenna actually is connected in the rear of the truck. It is essentially a backlit keyboard with a volume control.

The illumination is not thru bulbs, but a space aged "sheet of light" that can light up different buttons depending on the mode. Internally, it generates quite a bit of AC voltage to run that sheet(but low current). I bet something is fried in either the head unit or the brain in the back. The switch usually goes bad mechanically, the radio always stays on, but should not affect functionality. This radio is essentially a computer. The audio is converted into a digital signal and the DSP applies algorithms to the sound to modify it. It bet it would be very vulnerable to voltage issues.

 

[IronCurtain]

It probably fried the amp that's in the back. Head unit could still be working and sending signals to it, but if it's fried, you won't hear anything out of the speakers. I installed a new head unit in my 95 eddie bauer, and speakers, and ran all new speaker wires, instead of trying to figure out the mess of what wires go where to what piece of electronics. I have the jbl system too.

 

[Mbrooks420]

It’s far better to forget all that crap in the cargo area, and just rewire the door speakers if adding a new head unit, as mentioned above. It’s really not that hard.