I’m reaching out to see if anyone else has experienced what I am experiencing.

My truck is having radio issues where the sound cuts in and out when I brake. I have an aftermarket radio and have checked all of those connections to make sure nothing is touching or grounding out. I have a subwoofer, checked those connections and nothing is shorting out there to create the issue.

I have checked the fuse box, nothing seemed to be loose and causing the issue.

I have checked the cluster, as I already had to resolder the solder points for the odometer. I disconnected the right connector, as this turns the cluster and radio on. I reconnected it and turned the truck off and turned it back on to reset things and it worked for a little while, but then I eventually had my same issue of the radio audio cutting in and out.

I’m at a loss here as I have looked at the wiring harness that powers the cluster and nothing was helping the situation. Is there some certain solder points that I need to be looking for or is there a loose wire somewhere?? It’s not making any sense to me and no one I know has had this issue.

Please note that my brake light, known issue for the E-brake, is still on but not engaged and I do have a brake control module for trailer brakes. I have disconnected that as well and still didn’t solve my issue.

There was a lot of troubleshooting on my end and I feel like it’s so much simpler.. If anyone can help me out here it would be a ton of bricks off my shoulders.

Thanks in advance for any info that you may have.

 

Not sure at this point.
When you say the sound cuts out ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,does the radio lose power completely or is everything still on , but the sound goes off?

If it is only the sound going away when you depress the brake pedal, one thing you might check is the antenna .If the antenna wire has a poor connection depressing the pedal might move something that moves the antenna lead in wire resulting in either grounding out the signal or temporarily opening the path from the antenna to the radio.

If there is a complete loss of power we would choose a different path.

 

There isn’t a complete loss of power, it’s only when I brake that it happens. I don’t think it is the antenna, as most of the time I am listening to the BT music from my phone.

I am going to try checking my ground from the body to the battery. I talked to a friend of mine who is a mechanic and he stated that the ground connection from the body to the battery could have corrosion, debris, or it could be old and loose creating this problem. Bad grounds lead to a lot of weird electrical problems and that’s the only other thing that might be the problem, other than the possibility of an open wire somewhere else in the wire harness…

I appreciate your reply, as I might need this information later for troubleshooting purposes.

 

It shouldn't be hard to determine which wire for the radio is the ground. Once you know that, just run another temporary or jumper wire from the neg batt terminal to that ground wire. That will tell you if that is the problem or not..

I agree with your friend's reply, but ,,,,,,,,,,,there should be other problems aside from the radio. Ground problems can take one for a real ride if you forget to check them.

Something is cancelling out the radio signal and it could be an antenna problem or internal problem within the radio itself.
The fact that stepping on the brake produces the problem, is worthy of pursuing that path.

 

Thank you for the information. It was another connection grounding out from an older sound system setup that I had. The connection was grounding out the system. Solved my own issue if I did one more search of troubleshooting..