hey, I'm new to this so any help reguarding my idiocricy is welcomed.

anyways i've just inherited my uncles 89 cadillac sedan deville and the only thing he told was wrong was there was a short in the power antenna, well when i pressed to power button for the radio nothing happened, didn't expect it to do anything but a cassette wont go in, guessing radio has to be on before it accepts the tape

when i went in the trunk to look at the power antenna i noticed that there were two plugs one heading back into the car and one heading into the motor. i found a recepticle for the plugs and upon inserting them the motor turned on instantly and made a loud clicking noise and nothing else happened....the radio didn't turn on or anything.

basically im trying to just get the cassette part to work, radio is secondary. is there a switch or something that the power antenna hits when it extends? i checked the fuses btw and nothing seemed out of the ordinary except i have a fuseless hole in number 3 and i dont see anything to accept the fuse...

any help reguarding this is greatly appreciated

I think the radio can turn on, but the power antenna not go up.... Meaning the radio powers on, and then the power antenna motor kicks in...

This is kinda weird..... Im going to move this to the electrical forum..... :)

Welcome to the forums..... thanks for signing up :wave:

The radio should work even if the antenna is unplugged. You mentioned a missing fuse, are any other power accessories not working, since the radio usually uses two fuses, a body fuse and a radio fuse. Either fuse will prevent the radio from working. If the body fuse is missing, alot of stuff will not work, and this fuse is hot at all times. The other fuse is the radio fuse, it is only hot when the key is on.

nah i haven't had any problems with anything besides the radio its strange since there aren't any of the metal things (pardon my newbness) that hold the plug in there
its #3 on the thing

I'm assuming you checked for blown fuses too. Where was this fuse panel located? (theres a bunch scattered throughout the car)

under the dash...didn't know there were more, i might wanna check those if i knew where they were

If your factory radio is one of the 5 band equalizer type, the problem with your cassette not working may well be a broken tape belt inside. With that particular radio, the belt is necessary to be good, even to simply insert a tape. It's common on an older car, that the belt is broken. POINT OF INTEREST: those 5-band equalizer radios were built by Blaupunkt.

And your antenna problem is likely a totally independent problem of your tape problem. GM power antennas, when bad, will run constantly EVEN when the ignition key is turned off (they are powered all the time so that they can retract when the key is turned off). You're lucky if the antenna failed in the "up" position. Just remove the 3 conductor plug from the power antenna unit in your trunk to stop it from running and "clicking". The thick black wire is the actual antenna signal receiver wire, and it works whether the up/down motor is functional or not.

Good news is, that even with a broken tape belt, and nonfunctional antenna motor, the RADIO should still work as long as the antenna is UP, and you have power to the radio. If the clock is lit on the radio, then there's power to it. IF all these conditions are met, and the radio still doesn't work, it's likely defective. They're cheap in the wrecking yards around where I live, usually under $20.