Wierd electrical problem affecting stereo....

[SKID]

Current problem is when I'm driving and hit the brake or use indicators my stereo dims as though I have turned on the headlights. weird thing is some ties it does it for the duration of the trip, other times it will do it for a few seconds the stereo back to normal, its causing me grief with my reversion camera, I have owned this truck for less than a month, and am finding things like this out every day, I've tried to earth the rear indicators and tail lights and brake lights with diodes which made no difference, its as though when I use the indicators etc it is finding earth though my stereo.. Haven't tried running the camera off the wires for my trailer plug yet as the previous owner ripped and mangled the wiring when 4wding.. I have checked and made sure no of the wires for the trailer plug are shorting. Have run an earth from battery to engine, have run an earth from battery to body from battery, have run an earth from the head unit to body, and it still does the same thing, but it is so wierd, when I finished the earths I turned the unit on and as soon ats the dash lights lit up it interfered with the stereo as though it was trying to power up the reversing camera, same deal with indicators, hit brake or using indicators does the same.... Then I turned the key to light up all the dash lights a second time and it did not interfere with anything,
Any ideas and suggestions appreciated..

[GeeYou8]

The stereo is designed to dim when the tail lights are on (park lights or headlights on), so I assume you have an intermittent short in the mangled trailer plug wiring.
Graham

[blocko05]

might be an idea to re wire the stereo its self. As you are not the one who installed the stereo you don't know how the previous owner hooked it up. The accessory wire (usually the red wire) could be piggy backed onto a accessory that does not run that much current. The rear camera could also be hooked up to the same spot. you can try and re wire it your self and make sure it goes to the correct fuse for your stereo. I would also re wire your camera while you are at it. A multi meter and a test light are a great way of fault finding.

[mudnut]

X2 with the above replies. Especially the wiring loom to the mangled plug, as some tension on the wiring may have exposed some wires further in. The lights dimming seems to indicate some sort of short or crossed wires. Checking where power was accessed for the both the camera and stereo is a must, in this case. I found that whoever installed my unit had just twisted the wires together. Some had pulled out and were touching.