i just bought a new sound system and am having trouble installing it. i have a 94 SE with the bose cassete/cd reciever. i've searched on the forum and gone to numerous web pages with general maxima wiring info but have not found any info that matches up with my car.

i have a kenwood kdc-mpv619

i have no problems distinguishing the speaker wires. i'm just a little confused about the following:

``````````````````````````````````
FROM KENWOOD HEAD UNIT
A. Power control (blue wire/white strip)
B. Ant control (Blue)
C. Illumination (it says "Illumi" on the wire but says "Dimmer control wire" in Kenwood manual. (orange wire/white strip)
D. Ignition wire (red)
E. Battery wire (yellow)
F. Ground Wire (black)
``````````````````````````````````

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FROM NISSAN
1. yellow wire/green strip/silver perpendicular stripes
2. black wire/(perpendicular to wire) silver stripes, 1" spacing between stripes
3. red wire/yellow strip/silver perpendicular stripes
4. black wire/red strip/silver perpendicular stripes
5. brown wire/white strip/silver perpendicular stripes
6. green wire/yellow strip
7. green wire/white strip/silver perpendicular stripes

according to the harness i bought the following wires above from nissan are:
1. ignition wire
2. ground
3. illumination
4. dimmer
5. 12 volt memory
6. power ant
7. amp turn-on
-----------------------------------


which wire do i hook up with which? also should i hook up the kenwood "Illumi" wire to the dimmer or the illumination wire on the nissan wires?

this is what i have and the HU does not work:
1D
2F
3(open)
4C
5E
6B
7A

this should go into the stickies if it's answered.

 

I dunno about stickies. Check the simple things: fuses, turn the car on and use a multimeter to check the hot wires (ignition, battery, which is always hot).

Something else as an FYI, the dimmer and illumination are theoretically different. Your max has a dimmer switch which controls the intensity of all your dash and instrument gauge lights. Presumably, it would also dim your HU display brightness accordingly. The illumination wire is optional as you noticed; it's connected to your lighting switch. You ever notice how your clock dims when you turn on the lights?

Wiring the illumination switch does the same thing to your HU.

It's hard to tell exactky what's wrong with your installation. But for completeness, let me ask the stupidly dumb/obvious questions:

1. You did turn on the car, yes?
2. When you say the HU doesn't work, do you mean, no power at all or no output from the speakers?

A multimeter is your friend; fuses can be you friend...

Good luck

 

My first question is have you cut off your factory harness clip already? My guess is "yes" since you have already mapped out the wires, but your easiest solution would be to buy a aftermarket harness adapter which plugs into your factory one. I am also going to guess that you have already thought about this since you are taking on the job by yourself, so my last bit of advice, if all else fails, run a nice sized power/speaker wire (16 gauge or lower) from your battery or fuse box, and a solid ground from the car's metal framework around the stereo. FYI, I ran a 12v power wire (constant/memory) from my rear-window defogger fuse connection.

 

i used the multimeter and was able to locate the always hot wires and hot when on wires. when i said it doesn't work i mean it doesn't turn on at all.... the wierd thing is that my antenna goes up. i'm guessing it has something to do with the Illumination wire.... i don't have the speakers in yet. i wanted to work on the HU first.

should i connect the "Illumi" wire on my new HU to the stock dimmer or illumination wire?

also i noticed that the "so called" ground wire is not grounded. i connected the always hot wire (batt. mem) and the ground through the multimeter and didn't get any readings. i also tested the ground wires with the acc/igniton wire while the car was running. is this normal? i read somewhere on the forum that the bose ground wires aren't treally grounded... (?????) can i jsut ground the wires from my new HU to any grounded source (i.e. metal radio housing)?

thanks

 

I should start off by saying that I'm in the UK, so things may not be the same but I expect they will be.

Firstly - the head unit grounds through the chassis, so no matter how many black wires you tape up the unit will do jack **** until it is dropped into place with at least one screw holding the brackets into the dash.

If the antenna works but the stereo appears to do nothing, try switching over the permanent and ignition live wires, it's easy to get them wrong.

Well, that was my experience anyway.

Also, the unit should operate fully whether the illumination wire is connected or not - this will just light up/dim the unit when the sidelights are on and won't affect overall functionality.

 

Did you get and install an antenna adapter? The Sony currently in my maxima didn't come on until the antenna was plugged in