Stereo install question

stueveone · Post by **stueveone** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 3:50 am

Hey guys,
So I just bought a new Alpine CD reciever and am having a bit of a problem hooking it up. First off, how many wires should there be from the car to stereo?

Mine has 2 sets (4 total) of speaker wires, One big fat red wire, one big fat brown wire, and one greyish wire with a stripe.

I hooked them up as per the instruction of the Alpine manual to corresponding colors, but nothing. The deck won't even turn on.

The manual shows 4 wires that appear to have to be connected,

1 Illumination, which says has to go to the instrument cluster
2 Ignition
3 Batter
4 Ground

Any suggestions? I think I'll test the power wires tomorrow for voltage.

stueveone · Post by **stueveone** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 3:52 am

It also says that the ground connection should be made somewhere on the body. . . is this necessary or can you use the brown wire from the wire loom?

bscutt · Post by **bscutt** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:46 am

Having installed many stereos over the years, I would
1) make sure the ground wire is connected to a good ground point. On Rabbits that's usually on the steering column.
2) There are two Hot wires - one iss always on to keep the clockc and memory alive, usually it's yellow but don't count on that. The second wire gets switched on with the ignition, usually red but again don't count on it. Make sure yours marked Battery is getting constant power. If you want to cheat for testing you can also connect the Ignition one to the same point but the stereo will not shut off with the ignition switch
3) Speaker wires - 4 sets,. one for each corner. Never ground any of them, most newer stereos won't tolerate grounding the "low" side

In a pinch, find known good power and ground comnections, use test leads or whatever you can to get ground to the ground wire and power to both power wires. Then it should at least turn on.

stueveone · Post by **stueveone** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 2:30 pm

So I just did a thorough checking of some wires and found that I got power from the red wire (16v) when the key was on and no power from the white and blue wire at all, any time. Then, I discovered that the fuse for the radio (on the fuse panel) was blown. But, weird thing is, when I replaced it, still nothing worked, and weirder still, I didn't get any power what so ever out of any wires?!

Any suggestions guys?

P.S. I grounded off the ebrake arm

bscutt · Post by **bscutt** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:20 pm

Find a wire going to the cigar lighter socket, splice a wire into it (be careful it's always "hot") and run it to tha wire for the "memory" on the stereo (#3 in your list). Connect thet red wire that has power when the switch is on to the one you indicated as Ignition in your list. If ground is connected you should at least get the display to come on.

JRM · Post by **JRM** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:48 pm

I will be replaceing my POS 7 watt 2 channel koss with the same deck I put in my Girlfriends '02 civic, for $150 this digital HD radio is amazing as I live 40 miles from town, standard FM is quite static filled but when the JVC hdr-1 locks onto HD it clears up into dolby digital 5.1 sound, and it stays locked to HD almost everywhere:
http://www.hdradio.com/

hjalbert · Post by **hjalbert** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 7:27 pm

This might be a suggestion, but I have had an experience where the radio would not turn on if the antenna was not plugged in.

A1-2-A3 · Post by **A1-2-A3** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:19 pm

Could be it or worst case senario accidental hotting the ground wires and frying it. Probably not, but if you did go for a warranty. Just play stupid. I have no problem with that.

stueveone · Post by **stueveone** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:24 am

Ok, so everything works. I hacked into the hazard light switch and everything worked great! Those MB Quart speakers sound pretty clean!

JRM · Post by **JRM** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:27 pm

please shair part numbers for good speakers, as seen in the above photo my golf is badly needing a radio and speakers as soon as i get it back on the road