*URGENT* stereo installation questions (2000 SL1)
 

i am trying to install a JVC KD-S79BT in my wife's SL1. i was following the wiring diagram listed in the thread here and i have come to a problem. i have only connected the ground, constant, and switched power so far. i have tried to power the unit on and its display will come on for approximately five to ten seconds when you press the "disp" button and the disc drive will eject a disc(well it will run, i haven't put a disc in it) but i can't power it on and actually do anything other than check the time on the display, which i can't set due to nothing working... it will keep time okay, so i can assume that i have wired up the power circuits in the proper order... the troubleshooting guide is extremely vague on this issue, and i have reset the unit about a billion times...

and the wiring in the car is a little confusing... there are some color duplicates in the stereo connector... for example:
there are two orange wires, one large and one smaller (orange is supposed to be constant power i think so i used the bigger one)
there are two grey wires, one large and one smaller ( i assumed that the smaller one is the speaker wire)
there are two brown wires, one large and one smaller(i assumed that the smaller one is the speaker wire)

there is an uninsulated, braided copper wire that had a female connector on the end that went into the factory stereo. is this another ground? the stereo installation guide said to ground it to the chassis again after installation...

is there something i'm missing here? after about three hours of fighting it, i've pulled out enough of my hair that i look kinda like Mr. Spacely...:confused: :mad:

Well -- If you had purchased the Chilton Manual for your car, you could look in the Electrical Section on page 12-53, and all your questions would be answered. Now that I have ragged on you a bit -- here's your answers:

Large ORG --> 10A constant 12V
Small ORG --> 5A constant 12V (this was for the remote CD player)

Large GRY --> interior lights (dimmer circuit)
Small GRY --> Left Front Speaker Return Wire

Large BRN --> interior lights (park lamp ckt)
Small BRN --> Left Rear Speaker Signal Wire

You are correct that the bare wire is the frame ground for the radio, and should go to a hard ground point ...

One day............I'll go buy a book. Then I'll have to learn to read. Ahhhhh forget that.

No problem there, RJ -- this book has a lot of pictures too .... :)

Pictures..................I like pictures.

It just seems logical to me with the complexity of automobiles these days that the very first thing I would do it buy a book that tells me something about them.
My Second car ( I blew up my first one shortly after taking possession of it) was a 1930 Ford. I re-wired it completely. but then again it did not have more than a dozen wires in it. And I did not have a book. Now I have three shelves of them and am in the process of building a 1976 model car and I have 4 books. One for the car, another for the engine and 2 more that cover generic representation of optional wiring so I can figure things out!.

so i need to connect both the stereo ground wire and the bare copper wire? wouldn't that ruin the stereo? that's how i cooked the one in my truck, it touched the metal dash, and created an internal short...

You forget -- I'm listing the wiring as it comes from the factory with OEM equipment ... it's ALREADY hooked up like I described.

I AM NOT TELLING YOU HOW TO HOOK UP AN AFTER-MARKET RADIO ... the documentation you got when you bought the radio does that.

Most aftermarket radios use the same color code for their units. If you don't cut the factory wiring harness, then you can get an adapter to go between the aftermarket radio and the cars harness. That is the easiest and best way to go, it makes switch back easier.

This link should help you in case you cut the factory harness.

http://www.installdr.com/Harnesses/GM-Wiring.asp

yeah, my wife was excited and wanted to get it in, and wanted to save the 20 bucks, so i did cut into the harness... i borrowed a multimeter and figured out that the yellow wire(switched 12V) doesn't provide 12V, so i took that power from the fuse box at the unused cruise control fuse, so the unit is getting power now...

but as one problem is solved, another arises...

the unit keeps saying that i miswired it... the troubleshooting guide says to check the speaker leads and i am 100% sure i made solid connections on all of them, and have them well insulated(wrapped tightly in tape)... apparently it's a "smart" unit, lol...

anyway, would the impedance of the stock speakers cause such a reading if it were different from the reccommended?

I would think it might just. Most stereos are designed to drive specific load, meaning the unit may be sensing the impedance (load) is out of the range it wants to drive.

Maybe

I put a JVC in my 02 Saturn and didn't have any problems, but I spent the extra $20. Now you are making me glad I did.

Did you solder those wires or just twist them together? If you don't solder, then at least use crimp connections. Twisting does not work very well.

BTW the JVC blew out the factory speakers after a month or two. I now have Polk Audios in there.

there I go --overlooking the simple

i agree with Keith
solder (per keith) and shrinkwrap while you're at it to avoid shorts

This is a little Factoid a lot of folks, including myself did not really know about. Having come from Old School where you wired into the wiring harness. Now having done that on more than a few cars and worked on those were it was done poorly and caused problems standardization makes sense.
But then again more or less when something like this has taken place radio's too have become standard-ized in size and shap which means face plate adapter kits became standardized also. No longer are radio's made to fit a car, the face plate adapter makes a universal radio look as if it belongs on a dashboard which is fine unless you are working with an older car that does not have a hole in the dash the right size for the now universal radio, there are no standardized wiring setups in the car and there are no instructions as to how to wire the radio with out them.

AND you have bought the radio at a swap meet with the wiring harness on the radio pre-cut!

i used a "triple twist" method of connecting wires, and it has always worked for me in the past, in my truck which had no wiring to start with, in my friend's pontiac sunfire that i wires an adapter in and made it plug and play, and in another friend's 77 ford that had no initial wiring... would soldering them make that big a difference?

would it hurt anything(besides sound) if i had the speakers hooked up backward? ex. pos to neg and neg to pos... the factory wiring diagram was a little ambiguous on which wire was which...

Don't know what pictures/diagrams you saw, but there's no ambiguity in the ones I've recommended ...

it was great on all the wires except for the speaker wires. it gives the right colors, but doesn't tell what color is the positive lead and which one is negative.

The diagram clearly shows the "hi" or "signal" side of the circuit with a "+", and "lo" or "return" side of the circuit with a "-". Each wire (both "hi" and "lo") have the color marked as well ......

Both references that I gave you do indicate which are the + and which are the - wires. It does not matter to the speaker if they are backwards, but for sound, they all have be right or they can all be backward, but they can't be mixed or the system won't sound right.

I don't know what a triple twist splice is, but back in the 60's when I started doing things like this, the western union splice was the splice of choice, it is stronger than the wires themselves, but I still soldered the wires afterward. We didn't have heat shrink back then so it got a good cover of electrical tape.

The yellow wire is a 12 V wire, but it only comes on when the key is in the accessory or run position.

My radio is a JVC KD-HDR30

basically, i split the stripped ends into a "V" shape and twisted one side around one leg of the other, then twisted those legs around the leg of the first wire, then twisted those braids together...

I made my living out of electronics for the better part of 50 years. Yes I worked on equipment with tubes and saw solid state ushered in before the various symbols were standardized which made working on things interesting. Any argument on the merits of twisting things together with out soldering them is one of wishful thinking.
If you are having a problem with something that was assembled using the method of twisting wires together? The very FIRST place to go to deal with things is poor connections and twisted connections are nothing but poor.
The second placed to go is putting something together by guessing what wires went where is the second place to go.
Like many things that one needs some basic knowledge in trouble shooting and analyzing a diagnostic symptom for something you are not familiar with such as working with something electronic? If you don't know how to read a schematic diagram and also don't know how to use a standard VOLT/ OHM meter a forum format can discuss the merits of using poor connections to put things together with and/or what color speaker wires are until one is blue in the face while these things may or may not have any bearing on the problem, the problem actually is some one has no idea what they are doing and this type of format in helping them is not a real good method to get that type of a job done.
Yes I have been there before and not known what is going on. Trying to get a radio into a car and not having any clue what wires go where, the knowledge of being able to second guess something has saved my butt.
However I have also blown up a few things too.
jToday's cars have become very technical in how they work. The electronics in them would take a semi-truck to carry the components alone 30 years ago and trying to get a radip from today into a 30 year old car and not being aware of the new radio standardization format because you have not worked with that part of the field of electronics at all and were not aware of what had taken place.
13 years ago I could buy a radio to fit a model car I built then. The instructions with the radio identified the wires used for and with it well enough to install it and my ears were good enough to detect speaker phasing so I could get them hooked up right because the speakers were not clearly marked as to which were + and -

NOW?
I can not even buy a radio that fits the dash board. And I can't hear the dang thing that well either.
And I had dang well better be able to read an electrical schematic diagram both for the car in question which requires buying one ( Thus the emphasis of going to the the auto store and spending $25.00+ tax on a Chiltons for your car) and some form of clear instructions on radio wiring (Thanks oceonarcher, I needed that and got a copy of it ) Between that and the shop manual for the car I am building and some instructions from my nephew who has kept himself current with the changes in stereo systems for automotive applications which I have not done. I should be able to install a modern radio in my 1976 car as soon as I can figure out how to fabricate some place for it to live.

i plan on soldering the wires together as soon as i get the setup to work, but what i'm gonna try is putting the simpler stereo out of my truck in the car if they have the same plug in the back.(they have became all but universal, so it's a possibility) this should give me a better diagnostic tool because when my stereo is miswired, instead of telling me(and not functioning until i fix it), it will work, but sound funny so i can tell where the error is and fix it... honestly, if the stereo out of my truck will work in the car, it might find a permanent home there, as i'm pretty sure it will work in the truck as my wiring is finalized (as in, soldered and shrink wrapped)

I would suggest this, get some good crimp splices and a crimper and splice you r old plug back in, that should not be hard, just match up the wires by color and size. The go and get the correct adapter plug.

Your splice method is one I have never heard of and like uncljohn, I have worked in the electronics industry for almost 50 years. Cars are my hobby.

I remember seeing the "v-splice" in a Popular Electronics magazine many years ago. I believe it was done so that when the splice was complete, the finished "joint" was not much larger than the original wire. Don't know if it's better than a crimp-type splice, or just different. With respect to the "phasing" of your speakers, the first thing I'd check is to see if one side or the other of the speaker coil is grounded to the frame of the speaker -- would sure make a difference in the hookup ....

there is where the problem i have lies. i didn't cut the wires with a pigtail on the end of the factory plug, i de-pinned the factory plug, like an idiot... so i would need some female pin connectors(factory ones are trashed) and the pinout of the factory plug to fix it...

i know it wasn't my finest moment, but i gotta live with it now... i'm consulting a professional in my area to see what i've done wrong in my wiring, other than not having soldered connections...

What's done is done, hope this helps and hope you learned something from all this. I hope this works, I am using photobucket to upload a picture. I cannot meet the constraints of this web site for the pictures which are from the FSM. If I drop the resolution any more, they will be unreadable. I have shrunk them as much as I can.

Attachment 1809

Attachment 1810

Well that didn't work. See if this works.

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps4e98613b.jpg

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps867c5b7d.jpg

This isn't working any better, they only show the thumbnail, so much for photo sharing.

Maybe this will help, its not the big picture but it fits in the constraints, I think.

yeah, it's readable. i'll check that car tomorrow, i might have wired it up that way...

i checked the wiring in the car, and it was backward, so i redone it again, but the stereo still doesn't work... the wiring is done properly and all... this is getting to be extremely frustrating, and my wife is getting impatient with me...

Maybe the radio has a defect.

that could be, but this is the second one i have tried. i have exchanged it once before for the same reason for an identical model. is it possible that i got two defective units in a row from the same supplier?

One of the things I have noticed about trying to install electrical items with out proper instructions and no idea what should be hooked up is you blow them up thus causing defects where none were before.

so i've been doing some research on this issue i have. i have looked at the radio diagrams i've been given. i have checked and rechecked my wiring over and over. i have redone it entirely time and again, only to yield the same result. so i called a professional that happens to be 100 miles from me asking about the stereo. it turns out that the manufacturer (JVC/Kenwood) put a chip in them that keeps them from playing with even the slightest defect in the wiring. keeps the stereo from burning down the car, they claim. the pro told me to test the speaker leads with a 9V battery, i should hear a pop from the speaker... if it sparks and pops, there is a short...

i tested right rear, got pop, no spark that i could see
tested left rear, got a whining noise that sounded like it was coming from the front of the car, maybe horn? no spark...
tested right front, no pop, no spark...
tested left front, no pop, no spark...

based on this test, i have come to the conclusion that i am not going to make the aftermarket stereo work with the factory wiring, so i am going to run my own wire and do it right.

my new questions are...

1. how does one take off the door panels to access the front speakers?

2. how does one get to the rear speakers?

I can tell you from experience that the factory speakers don't last very long with an aftermarket head unit. Mine lasted about a month, but I had the power limiter setting on in the head unit. I replaced them with Polk Audio, but they run about $100 pair. I think you can get some speakers at WalMart now that fit the 6.75" openings. Couldn't then.

Now, to get at the speakers. First get a door panel tool. They cost about $8 at an autoparts store and this is a good investment. You can easily do a lot more that $8 damage if you don't use one. Trust me on this.

For the rear speakers, first pop off the covers for the child seat anchors. Remove the rear seat cushion by pushing to the rear, then up. Then fold the seats forward and remove the Body lock pillar lower trim molding (them plastic pieces that run up the sides behind the seat backs) start at the bottom. You can use a screwdriver or the panel tool to remove the clips.

Now remove the 4 plastic clips that hold down the rear window trim molding aka package shelf. You can access the bottoms of these clips and push up or out so you are less likely to leave scars on the package shelf. The speakers are right there now.

There are two screws in the door panels, one in the handle trim and the other at the bottom rear corner. If you have power windows, there may be another screw located in the trim for that. If you have manual windows like I do, then push in on the panel around the handle so you can see the clip that holds the handle in place.

Rotate the handle so that the clip is oriented this way Ω. Then put a shop rag or washcloth over the top and draped down the sides. Push in on the sides, then pull the rag up from the center top. It will catch the ends of the clip and pull it out. Don't do this if you are parked on the grass unless you have a large tray under the door.

Now close the window all the way and pull the handle off and put the clip back in place on the handle. When you replace the handle, all you will have to do is just push it in place. Just remember the orientation of the handle, it should point forward when the window is up or it will kill your knees when driving. Trust me.

Now go around the edge of the panel with your panel tool to locate each of the blind fasteners. Make sure that there is one tine on each side of the fastener, then pry outward. When all the fasteners have been released, the panel is removed straight up.

Now you can verify all your speaker wiring with an ohmmeter. Besure to use dynamat between the speaker frame and the door frame or a good quality double sided tape. Foam or thick rubber double sided tape should do.

wasn't planning on replacing the speakers but i might give a thought... you know, tell the wife that they're about junked(even though they're good) and swap 'em out...

what size are they? 6.5" round? 6x9"?

6.75" all of them. It's a PITA to find speakers that fit. There are 6.5" speakers that have either a second set of holes or elongated holes for the GM spacing, but make sure before you buy that they say they can fit the GM 6.75" pattern. Even some of those who claim that (Polk Audio for example) do not fit all that well. I got mine from Crutchfield and they sent adapters, but even though they worked, they were universal adapters so they weren't that easy to figure out.

This is another example of GM engineering, there is nothing so easy that they can't find a way to make it difficult.

The Polk Audio's sound great though. but the inside of a car going down the highway is never a good listening environment. If I were doing it today, I would use the cheaper speakers available at WalMart instead, but that was not an option when I did mine. Just make sure they can handle the 22 watts RMS that the JVC head unit puts out.

That sounds good... Ill probably use some pioneers from wal mart if any...

You may want to check these out. I have used this company before and been satisfied;
http://www.onlinecarstereo.com/CarAu...uctSearch.aspx
well I can see that did not get where I wanted to go, but it got close enough. Type into the search field;
6.75 speakers and it will list them out for you.

The ones i seen were pretty expensive... Dont wanna pay $89 for a pair of speakers in my wifes car...