I am in the process of installing 2 stereos in 2 cars. First, my camaro when I first bought it, we started it up, and the dash started smoking BAD, and we pulled the stereo out, the back was fried, so we taped up the open connections with electrical tape, and later that night, we saw a glowing in there that came on when the ignition came on. we taped Everything, even the antenna wire was kinda roasted... so we taped it. I have 2 camaros, same year and everything, and the other one is a parts car, is there anything I can take off its stereo stuff, that one worked fine... And the other stereo is in my friends 93 infinity G20. I am amazed how good I did, its professional except that the rear speaker wires are plugged in fine, but there is no rear sound... Any Ideas? They worked fine that day with the factory still in it...

Thanks

 

You may just have to rewire the whole stereo if all that is going on. It's kinda surprising that it isn't blowing a fuse with all that going on. It definently sounds like a previous owner hacked up the in dash wiring.

As far as the other car. Try unhooking one of the rear speakers and see if the other one comes on. Otherwise, did you use an adapter when you installed the head unit so that you could keep the factory wiring harness? How did you connect all the wires? Wire crimps? Solder?

 

On the infinity, we got the factory adapter, and then in my room, we used electric tape and stripped it down pretty good, twisted together the wires, and taped em, they are good connections as far as I know. They worked fine before. I had the same head unit in my camaro, but I didnt have the speakers in the back, so I used just the dash. In our autoshop someone said possibly the headunit is messed up, and I dunno because I didnt even have rear speakers...

Thanks

 

It may be possible that the head unit is damaged, not working properly. The twist and tape method is not really the best way to connect them. I would at the very least crimp the connections, even better would be to solder and heat shrink them, but that's a lot more time consuming. One other thing, have you checked the fader on the head unit? If you hadn't been running any rear speakers previously you may have set the fader to max so that it only played out of the fronts.

 

This is wierd, I am using the factory dash speakers, and they dont handle bass, i dont have crossovers, and no rear speakers, so I fade it to the rear about 3 or 4, so the bass isnt soo strong on the front, and there is no rear to distort. I use subs, so i still have bass. I am pretty sure thats not the problem lol. If the tape method is bad, why does everything else work then?
I have made sure they are contacting...
Thanks

 

The tape method is bad for 2 reasons. One, once you tape up the connection you can't see if the wires are still connected. Two, a car is a very volatile enviornment when it comes to wiring. You have extreme temperature changes that occur in a car that can cause the electical tape to melt and come off. You also have a lot of moving around of the wires from driving over bumps, etc. that can cause them to work their way loose.

 

if your planning to keep the car and be serious witht he sound, like someone already posted you should run new wire. I took off all the panels and ran fresh new speaker wire (its like 50 cents a foot) and I made new connections and crimps. It took me 8 hours to run 4 6 by 9's in the back and the wire is completely hidden cept for the spots that are impossibe to hide. You can never go wrong with fresh wire, I even ran fresh wire from the input terminal to the sub in the box. Might be time consuming but its WELL worth it if the wires are all banged up cause that could cause a ground and blow your unit up (if its not already).

 

Yipe!

1. SOLDER!
2. HEAT SHRINK!

Twisting and taping doesn't make for a good system... a soldering gun is $5 from Radio Shack, and a pack of heat shrink is $3 or $4 or so from the same place.

 

It did blow up my headunit. I just pulled an engine for the car, and the wiring harness all over the place is melted, especially on the battery cable, and the alternator. So I am totally rewiring it, how do I rewire inside the dash?

BTW, does anyone have a book, and access to a scanner, that has the wiring diagram for the harness, and the wire harness plug faces? My stupid book says turn to 370 or something, but the book goes to 340 or so... grr

Any help would be great!

Thanks