Car head unit wiring help

[salmon]

Trying to change my head unit from the original pioneer keh 6600rs to a new alpine and completely confused. In the last car it just swapped straight over however this seems a lot more complicated. For starters the old head unit has a light green wire that seems to go straight into the head with no connector, can this wire be removed? The yellow live wire doesn't go into the connector block, can I just bypass this to go straight into the connector. The wires pattern doesn't seem to match or are the colours different? On the cars block it is (left to right lower) empty, red, red white stripe, black (left to right upper) empty empty thin red green. On the head unit it's (lower) black empty yellow empty, (upper) red blue empty empty.

Green wire



Cars block



Any help appreciated thanks

[WeirdNeville]

Those two blocks, the Brown and Black one are "ISO" blocks or certainly look like them.
You need something a bit like this:

Which connects those two ISO blocks to the rear of your headunit.
The thick black wire with the plug on it is the aerial (I guess you know that). I can't think what the green wire is or which one you're referring to, but people often connect the head unit chassis to "earth" to help with noise issues, so it could be that.

Get the right loom adaptor and you should be hot to trot.
Just to add, sorry, that the wires may not "match" colors depending on what they used in the cars loom. There tend to be some common ones, yellow is ignition on, red is often +12V the whole time, blue is "remote on" (used to put up aerials with raido tuner selected or else power up an amp when the headunit is on), but ISO block should sort all that out for you.

Edited by WeirdNeville on Thursday 30th December 22:04

[salmon]

Cheers assumed they were all the same layout, didn't know if this one had been messed with as the one in my chim went straight in which all wires corresponding.. I'll pop along to halfords to see which one I need.

[hardcorehobbit]

Sorry to hijack a little bit but I also have a problem.

For some unknown reason, when I plumbed in my new stereo to my Primera, it decided that it wouldn't remember anything.

It remembers that demo mode was turned off, but doesn't remember any set stations, the aux activation, cd location, time, settings or anything else.

It works fine when it's on, but seemingly resets whenever I turn the engine off.

Any help appreciated.

[Faust66]

hardcorehobbit said:

Sorry to hijack a little bit but I also have a problem.

For some unknown reason, when I plumbed in my new stereo to my Primera, it decided that it wouldn't remember anything.

It remembers that demo mode was turned off, but doesn't remember any set stations, the aux activation, cd location, time, settings or anything else.

It works fine when it's on, but seemingly resets whenever I turn the engine off.

Any help appreciated.

Sounds like you need a permanent live to the headunit to save your memory settings. If you've used stock ISO conectors (i.e. the ones that came with the car) you should have this. I'd take the unit out and re-connect it just in case the leads have not properly mated up.

OP: as has been said, Halfords or a specialist car audio shop should be able to advise... IIRC the adaptors are only about a tenner.

[Frederick]

hardcorehobbit said:

Sorry to hijack a little bit but I also have a problem.

For some unknown reason, when I plumbed in my new stereo to my Primera, it decided that it wouldn't remember anything.

It remembers that demo mode was turned off, but doesn't remember any set stations, the aux activation, cd location, time, settings or anything else.

It works fine when it's on, but seemingly resets whenever I turn the engine off.

Any help appreciated.

If it has it's own loom, then just unplug and swap over the red and yellow connectors.

It may also be that it isn't earthing very well - nissan's don't have an earth wire in the loom as the OE radio bolts to a bracket behind the dash which is earthed - easy fix is to extend the black wire in the loom, put a ring terminal on it, and earth it somewhere there is bare metal.

Certainly I'd say a switch of the red and yellow wires on the radio loom will be the most likely culprit. Some kenwood radios have a fuse that can be shifted positions but that only affects it being on/off from the key, or permanently live.

[Frederick]

salmon said:

Cheers assumed they were all the same layout, didn't know if this one had been messed with as the one in my chim went straight in which all wires corresponding.. I'll pop along to halfords to see which one I need.

You don't need anything, you have +12v, +12v switched, GND and illumination. The spare ones are for electric aerials (which the tuscan doesn't have) and possibly an amp aux cable (again, which it won't have).

Plug it in, turn it up, then curse when you can't fit the radio back in because the ISO loom is too big to fit in the hole! Trust me, I fitted an alpine into a tuscan (used to do car radio installation as a job) and it was a right arse on!!

Ended up cutting most of the wire out of the Alpine loom, soldering it back together but it was 3 inches long rather than about 9! Fitted like a dream then!

Have fun

Edited to add, if your alpine has a loose yellow wire, it means it's probably one of the high power 60w internal amplifier jobbies, that needs to be connected to a good, constant +12v. You can hook it to the permanent live on the radio loom but it will probably get very hot, and/or blow a fuse as the current it pulls is something daft like 20a alone down that wire.

Safest way to do it would be to find a feed at the fuse box and do it that way, or go direct to the battery. Either way make sure it's fused. If you're unsure of what you're doing, best bet is to take it to a friendly local car audio shop.

Just checked your profile and seen you're in Newcastle, you've got a couple of decent places - Bass Mechanix and Autosounds - both will be able to help you out.

Edited by Frederick on Thursday 30th December 22:51

[hardcorehobbit]

Thanks guys. I did use the standard ISO plugs that were in the dash. All I did was take the old aftermarket stereo out and put the new one in. The old one worked fine.. was an Alpine.

The new one, funnily enough, is a Kenwood. Only changed because the new one has an aux in port on the front.

[NCE 61]

The wires that go directly to the head unit connect to a block usually covered in bubble wrap :-



This is pushed down the back of the dash and from memory can be a bit difficult to remove.

[salmon]

Cheers for the replies, finally managed to get the time to have another go. I've taken the top of the old stereo and the grey wire goes to two separate little White clips that go into plugs on the stereos old circuit board, no idea what they are for but doesn't seem to affect the operation of the new one without them. New one all wired in and works fine, however as said above can't get te new one to fit in. There is a heatsink on the back of the stereo which i can unscrew to give a bit more clearance, but not sure if this is a good idea or not?

[Frederick]

salmon said:

Cheers for the replies, finally managed to get the time to have another go. I've taken the top of the old stereo and the grey wire goes to two separate little White clips that go into plugs on the stereos old circuit board, no idea what they are for but doesn't seem to affect the operation of the new one without them. New one all wired in and works fine, however as said above can't get te new one to fit in. There is a heatsink on the back of the stereo which i can unscrew to give a bit more clearance, but not sure if this is a good idea or not?

Don't take the heatsink off!!!

As I said in my post you'll need to modify the wiring loom length, it's the easiest way short of stripping the dash apart.

Do one wire at a time (although if you follow the colours you'll be fine) and try to stagger your cuts so you don't end up with a massive bunch of soldered connections in one place. It'll then fit down the dash and you should be able to click it into the cage

Careful you don't catch the wires going from the door pop buttons though

[Frederick]

That grey wire with a box on the end is a DC/DC convertor, really should be left with the radio! You will probably find it is tucked under a central strengthening bar (poss part of the roll cage) in the dash.

Edited by Frederick on Saturday 8th January 15:05

[salmon]

Cheers for all advice. Radio now fitted, had to chop the wires and re-solder as advised and fits just! Next job is to sort fitting some decent speakers but think I might leave that for a bit..