Ya I always sweat things before I even get it, same thing happened when I needed to replace my spoiler brake light cause I knew splicing was involved, literally took me 2 min to hook everything up.

But other question, since I'm connecting the interface black wire to the harness adaptor, do I also need to splice the stereo ground wire as well or is it just those two?

 

Yes, pin 14 refers to the dark blue wire in the factory harness because most harness adapters don't carry that wire through. That is the wire that carries the steering wheel switch signals.

 

You need to connect every wire in the harness adapter to its corresponding wire on the head unit first. Then you splice the wires from the steering wheel interface in addition to the ones you've already connected. So yes, you will connect the radio black wire to the harness adapter black wire and then the interface black wire to the harness adapter black wire as well. Same goes for the red wires.

 

Am I splicing the blue wire from the factory harness together with the green/yellow interface wire?

So 3 black wires will be spliced together and same for red pretty much, right?

Also, do you recommend putting butt connectors for the wires or is naked spliced ok?

 

Not exactly. You are splicing the green/yellow interface wire onto the dark blue wire. That may sound like a trivial distinction but it is important. You will not be cutting or otherwise modifying the dark blue wire in any way. You will use a ScotchLock connector (or equivalent) to attach the green/yellow wire to the dark blue wire.


The wire you are splicing (tapping) into (in this case the dark blue wire) slides into the outer slot and you push the cut end of the other wire (the green/yellow wire) into the inner slot closest to the hinged cover. Squeeze the metal tab down using pliers so that it slices into the wire's insulation and makes contact with the conductor inside then close the hinged cover.

Again, sort of but not exactly. The black wire from the radio and the black wire from the harness adapter will be connected end to end forming a single continuous wire. You can use crimp-on butt connectors or solder and heat shrink tubing for this.


Then you will splice the black wire from the interface into the harness adapter black wire using a ScotchLock connector as above.

 

Literally got stuck. So I need to buy that connector to splice the dark blue with green/yellow without cutting or modifying the dark blue wire? I should've ordered some connectors, can I buy at local stores?

Back to the black and red wires, can I just splice the three wires together and connecting some sort of cap on top of them?

Is there any intall pics or prints with this particular set up?

Sorry for all the noob questions, I just really want to understand this and get this right the first time without burning my car to the ground lol.

 

You guys are fancy

All I used were some crimp connectors I had laying around.



Cut off the tongue, crimped the wires then wrapped them in electrical tape.

 

I literally just want to splice the wires together and be done with it, do I really need those proper connectors/crimps? Did read it's bad to leave the ground wire naked like that.

How exactly did you connect the yellow/green interface to pin 14?

 

I cut the blue wire off of the back of the factory harness, then crimped it with a longer wire so I had more room to work with. Then crimped that wire to the Axxess adapter.

 

Yes, you can buy those connectors at Radio Shack, all auto parts stores and even WalMart. They are different colors for different gauges of wire. You'll want to get the red ones for this job. Since you are not familiar with them, it's safe to assume you don't have a crimping tool so you should get one of those as well. You can usually find a kit that has the tool and a variety of connectors for less than $15.

No, you should not twist all the wires together and use a wire cap to connect them. Wire caps are for household wiring which is solid (not stranded) and never moves. DO NOT use them in a car. Even worse, you should never just twist wires together and tape them. That's just asking for trouble.

Actually, you can buy crimp-on wire caps that are designed for connecting multiple wires but they are a specialty product and if you don't already have butt connectors or ScotchLocks then you won't have them.

They are available from Grainger if you really want them. You still need a tool to crimp them.

 

+1 on Walmart for getting the wire connectors. They usually have them both in the automotive department and also in an area where they other electrical items such as lighting & stuff. I'd start in the auto department. Don't just look by the stereo equipment, they usually don't have much there & it's usually just 2 or 3 in a pack, not enough. You're going to need 15 or 20 butt connectors (good to have some extras) and at least a couple of the scotchlock-type connectors.

An electrical pliers (or whatever they're called - the tool for crimping, stripping, cutting wire) is MUCH easier to use than a regular pliers. I started with my regular pliers a couple weeks ago because I thought they'd be good enough, but quickly switched to the electrical pliers because it's so much easier.

 

I'm more confused on how to use the ScotchLock connector

 

This is something like how it works. The black wire is 1 continuous wire, and the red wire is "spliced" in. Check them out at Walmart, might be clearer once you see them in person.

 

Ok I'm starting to get it now. Wire the harness and HU wires color to color with connectors. Check. Use ScotchLock connector to splice steering wheel interface wire into pin 14 (dark blue). Check. Now to my understanding, I'm also using the ScotchLock connector to splice the ground wire with the ground from harness and repeat for red accessory power? So I'll be using 3 ScotchLock connectors total?

 

Be careful on matching the wires. Usually the wires match in color, but on mine, the wire for illumination on my head unit was different than the illumination wire on the harness. Go on your HU manufacture website and find your manual. Look for something like this to guide your installation:

 

Can I use pliers for crimping or do I really need to get a crimp tool?

 

I was just at Walmart tonight, and they had a crimping tool packaged with a few connectors, for $4.98. You can probably get by with pliers, but the tool makes it so much easier to cut, crimp, splice, & strip wires.

 

Gotcha. I'm all set with the details, going to buy crimper, butt connectors and a few quick splice connectors. Hopefully everything comes by Saturday to begin installation, if not then by Tuesday. I'll keep ya'll posted, thanks again for all the help.

 

Yes, please do! I'll post some pics of mine too, although it's just a couple of door speakers.

 

That's because there are two ways the illumination can be connected. The adapter harness usually has both orange and orange/white illumination wires but most head units only have one or the other.

The orange wire is designed to connect to the dash dimmer circuit so that it gets variable voltage depending on how bright the driver has the dash lights. This allows the aftermarket HU to dim its display in sync with the instrument panel lighting. Very few aftermarket units have this wire.

The orange/white wire is designed to connect to the parking/running light circuit so that it has 12V power when the lights are on and nothing when the lights are off. The head unit then has a bright display setting for when the lights are off and a dim display setting for when the lights are on. Most people find this sufficient since they generally set the brightness once and then leave it alone so most aftermarket HUs use this wire.

You still should have had a wire that matched (the orange/white in your manual) but you would have had a leftover orange wire in the harness adapter that was not used.