Going crazy!

[awedel]

If anyone can help me out it would be much appreciated. So heres the deal. My truck has a battery disconnect switch that turns off power to everything including the radio. With that being said, all of my radio settings get erased when I turn the battery switch off. So in order to by pass the battery switch I took the ignition power wire and the constant power lead from the radio and hardwired them directly to the battery with a in-line fuse. So the radio has constant power now, except when you turn off the battery disconnect switch the radio turns off even when theres power to it!! (The radio is grounded to the inside of the dash ) So this is where I go stir crazy!! The radio has constant power and works when the battery switch is on (which it should) but when I turn the battery dis-connect switch off, the radio turns off even though I ran direct power to the battery. The only way to get the radio to turn on when the battery dis-connect switch is off is when I take a jumper wire from the battery negative and touch it to the radio ground (which is already grounded to the dash). Any Ideas????

[Gonepostal]

You loose your ground with the switch turned off

[MadManAndrew]

It sounds like your ground is what goes through the cut off?
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[awedel]

I know just enough to get myself in trouble! So if I loose my ground through the switch. Can I run the ground wire to the battery post and call it good?
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[tubbedII]

If that's really what is being killed by the switch, then yes, and you can disconnect the wires you ran for the positive...

[awedel]

Thank you for your help. I simply ran the stereo ground to the battery negative post and the radio works with the battery disconnect in the off position.
Before with the battery switch off, when you tried to start the truck nothing would happen. Now after wiring the radio even with the battery switch off when you try to start the truck it will try to crank over but doesn't have enough juice. Why is the starter now getting power when before it didn't with the battery disconnect off? Also one last thing!! When putting the radio back in it arcs a little against the cut out in the dash. This okay?
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[tubbedII]

Worst case scenario would be that the stereo is being "powered" by a constant hot wire touching its casing somewhere so it arcs when you go to install it in the dash (it's completeing the circut) and NOT good. This may also be completing the grounding circut of the entire vehicle even with the switch off but does not allow the correct current to flow so the starter seems sluggish since the radio is tied directly to the battery's ground bypassing the switch.

Now I'm no electrical expert, so this is just what I'm thinking may be happening, but if I'm right I it's probably a fire waiting to happen and should be looked at right away. If it were me I'd pull the radio out immeditately and start from scratch on a clean re-wire while checking all wires for freys or heat damage.

Maybe snap a few pics if the wiring and post them up...might help shed some light on this whole thing too.