I have a Delco am radio in my dash that I put there basically just for looks. The guy I bought the car from had shoe-horned a casette player in the dash but thankfully didn't cut it up. I have an aftermarket stereo, so I don't care about any sound from the factory radio - but I would like the light to come on. As I was replacing the bulb, I read something like 'do not use radio without 6 ohm speaker' scribed into the back of the radio.

Am I going to mess anything up if I don't have the radio connected to the dash speaker? If so - can I just use a resistor or something? There's a power source on my fuseblock that gets 12 volts when the lights are turned on, so I was planning to use that to make the radio come on - but I don't want to fry anything.

Thanks for any help!

If I'm not mistaken you can just wire the + side of the light socket (taking a blind guess as of how the light is wired. Never seen inside one of these radios before) and just have that illuminate, and leave power to the actual radio off (Could probably remove the 'radio' fuse in the fusebox).

EDIT: I'm not sure if this radio has a 'illumination' wire; if it does that goes to the lights inside of the radio and when given 12V will turn them on.

I'm not sure if this is an actual Camaro radio - but it fits in the radio cutout. The light bulb pushes into the top of the radio and just has 1 wire going to it. The back of the radio has a plug that has 3 male spade connectors. 2 of them are the + and - (I think) and the other one goes to a speaker.

69 and earlier radios have the dial illumination lamp powered from inside the power switch of the radio (ie the light isn't on unless the radio is on.) 70 and later radios have the radio illumination lamp powered from the dash light circuit (ie the light is on when the parking or headlights are on regardless of what the radio is doing). If you want to repower the dial lamp on a 69 radio you wil have to cut the lead to the bulb and tie the lamp directly into the dash light circuit.

OK - I think I am following you now. So if I just cut the wire that goes from the radio to the bulb and run a 12 volt power wire from the breaker that powers up when the lights are on to that wire - the radio should light up when I turn on my lights? (sorry about the excessive use of the word 'light!')

Just pull it off of any dash light wire under the dash, that way the dimmer will be able to make it brighter or dimmer.

Well, I pulled the radio and as it turns out - the light had been coming on all along. I just couldn't see any light from the radio. I am going to see if maybe the bulb that's in there is too weak.