Car Stereo Wiring Harness
- Thread starter xKroniK13x
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Just to add to what's been said. The blue and blue/white are sometimes different. The blue is always a turn on wire, if the head unit is on then the blue wire will have power on it. The blue/white wire is for an electric antenna and may only be hot when the radio is in use, meaning the wire will not be powdered when the CD/DVD player or a digital media devise is the source signal.
Yellow is used in my specific unit for constant power. My wiring harness does have a dark blue labeled "POWER ANTENNA," and the blue/white on my stereo is labeled "SYSTEM REMOTE CONTROL." Thanks for the input though, that makes a lot of sense now that you say it. This whole thing has been a pretty good learning experience.
I'm getting old, would have sworn that the blue/white was antenna and solid blue was the remote. In my defense, it has been over a decade since I was messing with that stuff. The color code for aftermarket audio/video was standardized back in the late 80's but the auto makers never caught on. The installation products are so complete now that you should never have to cut a factory wire anymore. I hate when the first thing someone does it cut the plug off the factory harness.
That is one nice thing, I have a neat plug that will plug right into the stock harness so it's not necessary to clip one wire. It also makes it a lot easier that I can do all of this inside on the kitchen table! From my understanding through googling, escapes have a little bit of a weird wire set up.
Several of the Fords do. Ford uses amplifiers that are hidden in many different places (your wiring kit may have a by-pass harness, about 10" long with an 8 or 9 wire plug on each end). The amp really needs to be by-passed when going to an after market head unit. Amps need low power inputs and aftermarket decks have high power outputs but most of the time the hackers won't get the turn on wire right going to the amp and there will be no to very little volume from the speakers.
Wiring was only good until like 2002. Then they started putting all kinds of stuff to the stereo and it makes it confusing
Well I connected everything and it didn't work. 
Checking all power connections now. It literally did nothing.
Checking all power connections now. It literally did nothing.
Yea, I think an 03 GM was the first one I ran into that had the 1 wire door lock actuator. It took a week to figure that one out. I've used the modules to work with steering wheel controllers but never got into anything more than adding an amp on higher end stuff that had navagation, blue tooth, sync or OnStar systems. The passlock 1 system that GM had was enough to turn me against GM forever. I've read that some of the Euro makers were bringing out a 48VDC bus system but don't know if it ever happened.
Well I connected everything and it didn't work.
Did the head unit light up? If not, check the fuse under the plug on the head unit and impedance from the head units metal frame to a KNOWN good ground. If the yellow wire has power with the key off, the red wire has power with the key on and continuity between the deck frame and a good ground.....it's either the head units on board fuse or the deck is bad (I've taken more than 1 from the box and it be bad).
If the deck lights up but you have no sound, I'd bet there is an OEM amp in there somewhere. Like I said, the best way I've found to determine if a Ford has an OEM amp is to look at the size of the wires in the dash and at the speakers. If it is an OEM, you'll have to find it and put the jumper in it's place.
I connected the ground to the black "chassis ground" wire, and it didn't work, so I tried it on a piece of the frame in the stereo area, and that didn't work either. It doesn't light up at all, it is completely dark and no LEDs come on, doesn't even make a sound. I thought that maybe it is the ebrake bypass malfunctioning? But I would imagine it would at least still turn on.
i've been down this road before on my sons VW jetta, seems the alarm system is integrated into the stereo on that model, and the only way around it was a complete install kit from crutchfeild, including a $125 little black box ? made it easy breezy, and the only route i'll ever use again.
maybe check out crutchfeilds website, maybe you'll see something needed or missed on there for your particular vehicle ?
btw...is there an "illumination" wire that needs wired to an ignition switched hot ?
thats what usually runs the lights in stereos ?
maybe check out crutchfeilds website, maybe you'll see something needed or missed on there for your particular vehicle ?
btw...is there an "illumination" wire that needs wired to an ignition switched hot ?
thats what usually runs the lights in stereos ?
Yes, theres an illumination wire that is on it. I have that hooked up. I'm going to redo all of the wiring to make sure they're all right. I'm doing a different type of bypass in a couple days, I just couldn't go to radioshack today because of turkey day.
Yeah, I will, hopefully I can find something! I'd be pretty bummed if it was a DOA unit.
first thing i would do is disconnect your ebrake mod(replace it with a normally closed momentary switch wired to ground)...then i would hook up yellow/red to 12v and black to gnd...nothing else and see if i powers up (do you have a jumpbox you can use at the table?)
make sure you havent crossed any of the wires in the factory harness, theyre could be +5v & data lines that talk to the diff systems in the car
some newer cars like my 2010 dakota need to have a 12v ign wire run from the fusebox, as the car powers the stock radio via the 5v bus line for turnon
i would bench test the headunit 1st, then goto the car and probe the harness for 12v constnt and 12v ign, make sure they both exist
make sure you havent crossed any of the wires in the factory harness, theyre could be +5v & data lines that talk to the diff systems in the car
some newer cars like my 2010 dakota need to have a 12v ign wire run from the fusebox, as the car powers the stock radio via the 5v bus line for turnon
i would bench test the headunit 1st, then goto the car and probe the harness for 12v constnt and 12v ign, make sure they both exist
Have you tested it at the plug with a meter? If you have 10.8 VDC or more on the red and yellow wires, a good ground and a good fuse....it should power on. I've seen the fuse in place but not plugged into the female connectors, the switched power wire only have 5.5VDC (from the vehicle harness, that was a GM thing) and support steel beams in the dash that was mounted to plastic (don't assume just because it's steel that it's a ground). Does this unit have it's main fuse under the harness plug? The plug used to have a tab that covers the fuse when the harness is plugged in to prevent the fuse from being removed while the unit had power on it.
I did disconnect the ebrake mod, just incase that was screwing it up, still the same results. From what I read online, this is a pretty much plug and go harness, not sure the issue! Wish I had a way to test it at the table, but I do not... how much is a jump box?
My dad has a meter, I'll give it a test next chance I get, which is looking like saturday morning. Going along to my gf's family to celebrate thanksgiving with them a day late. I did check the fuse, and made sure it was in the whole way. I also checked the stock fuse box to make sure neither of the radio fuses were blown. All good. The support beam I mounted to had a two areas for ground connections (screws with washers attached so you could clamp wires) and was being used on the stock stereo, so I know that's a good ground. Nothing is easy!
So all I have to do is attach the yellow (constant power) and red (ignition power) to a wire, and the ground, and attach them to the battery and it should turn on?
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