I have a factory wiring diagram for my truck, and one for the HU I am trying to install. But not all the the wires match up. I decided to do this on my own to save money, and to gain some knowledge of my system. I am clueless and feel helpless.
Plz number answers in response with the questions. Thnx in advance to anyone who is willing to help the dumb chic (me) who thought she could hang with the big boys!!!! :(
Here are the wires that have me confused:
1. There are 2 BLACK/ Green (Ground) wires from my truck. How do I know which one to use, or doesn't it matter? Why are there two of them?
2. I located the Light Blue/Red (illumination) wire from my truck, but I am confused as to where to attach it to my head unit. There are no wires on my HU harness labeled illumination.
Could it be labeled something different?
3. The truck wiring diagram listed a Blue (Amplifier Remote) wire. I don't seem to have a solid Blue wire coming from my truck. Can you explain to me what is the function of this wire, and could mine
be of a different color?
4. There are two wires from my truck, a RED / Black one, and a solid Black one. No such wires are listed on the wiring diagram. Is it normal to have wires that are not used? Or could they possibly go to a different labeled wire?
5. There is a Blue/White (System Remote Control) on my HU , but no such wire is listed on the wiring diagram for my truck. On the installation sheet of my HU it says "Attach to System Control terminal of the power amp OR to Auto-Antenna relay control terminal" Where should I attach this wire?
6. For my final question...Do I connect the ground wire coming from my truck, AND connect the ground wire from my HU? Or does only one of them need to be grounded? If so which one? I would assume the ground from the HU!!?
Well that's it for now. Plz send help soon, my dash panel has been torn apart for almost a week...wires hanging out everywhere.....and NO TUNES!!!!! I did manage to install new speakers in the rear door panels, and I located and connected all the eight speakers correctly! :D ***Renee
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Well I'd normally rip into a person for performing surgery without a clue but I'm feeling kinda charitable today. The first thing you should get is a DMM to test your wires. You should have purchased a wire harness to plug into your factory plugs, but hindsight is 20/20. Professionals today can do their installs so quickly because they use the wiring harness. Your install should have taken a pro about 20 minutes.
The problem you have is that you have a wiring diagram that most likely covers all of the trim levels for the F-150 in that year. That would include the basic truck with AM/FM radio, all they way upto the JBL sound system, so you will most likely have wires on the diagram that are not existant in your truck. You will also, since you are "hard-wiring' the radio, have extra wires left over on the truck side that are not used.
So, we need to start out with the basics. You will need three wires to power the unit up. Constant 12v which is Yellow on your new Headunit, Accessory 12v which is Red on your new HU, and Ground, which is Black on your new headunit. If you locate those three wires on the truck side, you are half-way home. So now here's some answers to your questions:
1. Yes, there are two BLACK/ Green wires from the truck for Ground. You can use one or two of them as they are parralleled. They added a second ground wire to distribute the current load of the stock head-unit.
2. The illumination wire is one of those truck-side wires that you will not use. If your Headunit doesn't have an illumination wire, then forget about it. Insulate the end and forget it's there. Even if it was there, I'd say don't connect it because there are three types of illumination wires. One is Positive triggered, which goes to +12v when the lights are turned on, another is Negative triggered which goes to Ground when the lights are on, and the other is the Dimmer, which varies the voltage depending on where you have your dash illumination set at. After market decks only recognize the Positive triggered illumination.
3. The Blue wire will be a factory amp turn-on. It tells the factory amp to turn on when the head-unit is on. You may not even have a factory amp so for now ignore it.
4. Without a DMM you won't know what these wires are for. But yes, you will have extra wires left over after the installation.
5. If you do in fact have a factory amplifier the Blue/white wire will connect to the amp turn-on in the truck.
6. The ground wire from the headunit must be grounded. You can ground it to the ground wire in the truck. The BLACK/ Green wire is the ground wire for the factory headunit, so you can attach the black wire from the new HU to the BLACK/ Green wire in the truck.
You can stumble your way through this install, but keep in mind that factories like to use the same color wire for mulitple things. So you end up hooking up a ground wire to a speaker lead etc, etc. You really need to use a DMM. Oh, and one more thing. The difference between an idiot hacking up his truck and a newbie starting out, is that the newbie will ask questions from local professionals and more importantly ask before hacking.
There is a sticky thread called "How to identify stereo wiring." Read it!
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Support the12volt.comMegaman you are the man!
I finally feel confident about continuing with this install!
Let me ask a few more questions if you don't mind just to make sure I have all the wires correct.
I have tested and attached all my speakers wires together. I have located my three wires to power the HU; Constant 12v (yellow), Accessory 12v (Red), & Ground (Black). I have Yellow (HU) attached to Light GREEN/ Pink (truck); I have Red (HU) attached to BLACK/ Purple (truck).
I have not yet attached the Ground of the HU, is it best to attach it to metal, or should I splice it and attach it to BLACK/ Green ground wire of truck? and does it matter which of the two ground wires I use? Are they both live? Should I cover the other one that is left over with electrical tape?
So once I attach my HU ground wire I should be able to start my truck and have tunes?????
*****Renee
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Either BLACK/ Green wires will suffice. You can go directly to metal ground if you have engine noise, however, 99.9% of the time you won't have it with factory head-unit wiring. The other BLACK/ Green is just a ground and since ground is your reference in a car, it's not "live." If it roams around and touches metal, nothing happens, but if it touches a +12v wire, that's when things get interesting. Insulate it and forget it.
Okay, so I'm going to attach the ground wire from my HU to metal on the truck. isulate any other wires that are not being used, start my truck............and I should have tunes??????????? YES!!!!!!!!
**Renee
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Well, I did it....I now have tunes in my truck!!! Many thanks to Megaman, the only one who responded to my post. He came to my rescue. Without his help I would still be clueless to all the rainbow of colored wires coming from my truck. Keep the knowledge coming!!!!!
****Renee
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