My CB Radio Killed My Truck!!!

[X JBM X]

Drove down to Jersey over the weekend from MA to go visit my folks, and I noticed a couple times when I keyed up the mic, the truck had a stutter.

So let me give you a little background to it - the truck's in perfect working order. Everything operates as it should, I have 155k miles. I'm running a Cobra 29 LTD Classic that is peaked and tuned, and swings about 50w. I also have that mated to an RM Italy Amp that makes it swing around 500w when turned up (it has 6 power settings) and that goes to a Wilson 1000 Mag Mount antenna or a Lil Wil (I was running both, the Wilson 1000 is too tall and keeps getting knocked off the roof)

So after I noticed the stutter, I just kept the amp off, and the CB works perfectly. So we have a perfectly working CB, an Amp that works perfectly, but it seems like the amp is drawing too much power and causing weird things going on with the truck.

Well, I'm driving with my father down to Philly for a gun show, and he decides to turn on the amp, and key up the mic for about 5 seconds. After the 5 seconds worth of stuttering, the SES light came on the dash. I mentioned this to him and he said "weird."

Then, a few minutes later, he keyed it up again, this time for about 10 seconds. As he's talking on it, and the truck died. I mean, everything on the dash looked ok, but I had zero throttle response. I wound up throwing the truck in neutral, coasting for a second (this was on the highway) and turning it off and starting it back up again.

After I started it back up, it ran fine, the SES light went away, and it acted like nothing ever happened.


So my thought is that I know my batteries are a bit old, and will need replacing before winter time. I'm just curious, could the amp be drawing too much power from the battery? What else could make the truck die like that?

[joeniel]

Edit: Nevermind

[X JBM X]

completely different.

[strokinpower]

I know you used to be able to kill VB Bugs with CB radios but havnt heard of killing super duties

[joeniel]

Originally Posted by X JBM X

completely different.

ok just a shot in the dark. as stated i dont know electronics that well.

[coot1]

I would guess the problem is not the draw on your batteries but more likely the RF interfearence created by your the high power output from your CB antenna affecting your trucks computer.

[X JBM X]

Yeah, that could be it.

I'm not quite sure yet. I'll have to play with a few things.

[Zaairman]

Sounds like it's knocking the computer out. Ever had lightning strike close by to your car? It'll do the same thing. Scary stuff.

[02stroker250]

Originally Posted by Zaairman

Sounds like it's knocking the computer out. Ever had lightning strike close by to your car? It'll do the same thing. Scary stuff.

exactly in my old truck i could sit at the gas pumps and when people started pumping gas i could key up and it would clear the pumps and they would have to reset it and ive also set off the bank alarm in my little town by sittin on the same street and keying up of course i had a humongous texas start amp on mine with a superstar 3300 peaked and tuned and it would shut my truck off if i had the amp all the way up and tried talking on it