wiring after market radio 2001 altima

I have an issue with my car (audio part). Every time i turn on the lights on the car while having the radio connected, the fuse (rear lights) burns. I did notice that if i take the antenna out of radio then the fuse does not burn, but then the radio wont turn on. It's an Nissan Altima GXE 2001, and the radio is a JVC KD-HDR1. Any one know how to fix this problem? Thanks in advance.

omg, just by reading what you have written, i can tell you have a bunch of problems with the wiring.

FIRST: you need to hook up the actual black ground wire from the radio to something that is bare metal. right now you unit is grounded through the antenna and that is why it wont turn on if the antenna is unplugged.

Next: unhook the orange wire and ORANGE / black (might be ORANGE / white) wire from whatever you have it hooked to because those dont need to be connected and i find that they cause more problems that they are worth.

a few questions, did you use an installation harness? or did you just try to wire it to the factory plug?

the only wires that need to be hooked to anything are:

RED, 12v switched power
yellow: 12v constant power
black: ground, you nissan wont have a wire for this so you need to screw it to bare metal

only other wires that need to hooked up are the speaker wires. and maybe the blue/white wire if you have a power antenna. hope this cleared things up

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the illumination wire (ORANGE / whitestripe), that one i didnt not connect it,
i bought the car recently, and had no radio at all.
i hooked up yellow wire to +12V, red to fuse which when u turn car on
it marks +12V, and black i connected it to the ground that is used on cig lighter (which i wouldnt even use).

i never like to use the fuse box to catch power for anything. there should be a wire on the radio plug that will give you everything you need, infact there are 2 plugs that went to the factory radio but the bigger plug will have your power wires you just need to find it. if there is no wire that gives you switched 12v then you probably have a blown fuse for that wire. and like i said, you should ground your radio to something metal and not another wire to eliminate all possible problems

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ok theres a factoy wire that goes to Audio fuse in fuse box, thats what i meant by connecting it to fuse, as for ground, i will connect it directly to metal in car, the thing i dont get is, how does the antenna make a fuse blow thought antenna was kinda like ground, i have no blown fuses other than the one for rear light and also dash both lights turn off fuse is under hood named (tail), the audio one was blown, but i replaced it when i connected red wire. im using a multimeter to check voltages.

mando88 wrote:

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ok theres a factoy wire that goes to Audio fuse in fuse box, thats what i meant by connecting it to fuse, as for ground, i will connect it directly to metal in car, the thing i dont get is, how does the antenna make a fuse blow thought antenna was kinda like ground, i have no blown fuses other than the one for rear light and also dash both lights turn off fuse is under hood named (tail), the audio one was blown, but i replaced it when i connected red wire. im using a multimeter to check voltages.

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grounding through the antenna doesn't cause a fuse to blow. im just saying that the radio should turn on without having the antenna plugged in. this tells me that your existing ground is not good because the radio is looking for ground elsewhere.

if it were me, i would run a brand new constant with a new fuse and accessory for the radio and not use the factory wires at all.

who knows, it could be something not obvious. a wire might actually be shorted somewhere down the line. might not even be related to the radio at all. try unplugging the radio and replacing the tail light fuse and see if it still blows when you turn the lights on. if it still does then you've got a bigger problem like a shorted wire or a bad switch.

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