I just installed my pioneer cd player (50x4 watts) and it works, but when my headlights get turned on, out goes my cd player. What could be causing that, I was thinking bad ground, but it would dim the stock radio's display like i think its supposed to. How can I fix this. This is in my trans am, and I had no such problems in my camaro. Thanks. BTW, I got the connector kit, and on that harness theres approx 3 wires not connected to anything. I just assumed that they were equalizer wires.

 

you have your ground wire hooked up to the illumination wire of the car. change your ground wire and it will work fine.

 

Wow, same thing happened when my friend tried to install his Pioneer deck into his truck. He hooked the yellow memory lead from the radio into the illumination wire from the truck. Trace your plug-in connector, make sure the following happens:

Yellow from pioneer -> orange in Factory harness
Red from pioneer -> yellow in Factory harness
Black from pioneer -> black in factory harness
Blue from pioneer -> pink in factory harness (if power antenna equipped)
"illumination" from pioneer (I forget the color -> brown in factory harness.

The "brown in factory harness" for illumination comes off of the little two-pin radio connector. From your stock radio, you had four connectors. Three were large, and were colored black, blue, and "natural" (white/yellowish). One went to the other side of the factory radio, and had two wires- gray and brown.

Gray is connected to your dash dim switch. You don't want this wire, it's variable voltage. You want to use the factory brown wire- it's connected to the lights switch, and was meant for the stock radio's clock dim- which means it gets either 0 or 12 volts. That's what the Pioneer expects to see.

 

Yep, turns out it was illumination to ground. I appreciate the help. Thanks.

 

anytime

 

I learned that lesson the hard way on my old firebird. I drove around all day with great tunes from the new radio, then when it got dark, I turned the headlights on and all hell broke lose! All of my interior lights quit, all of my exterior lights quit except for the headlights. The headlight motors quit too.

All in all, it wiped out 2 or 3 fuses and 3 relays.

 

rewire the positive and the ground and you will not have any more problems.:lala:

 

No need to rewire the positive feed. His problem is that he's got his ground hooked to the brown wire instead of the black.

 

I had almost the same problem in my 79 cutlass, except the stereo would only work when the lights were ON. I must have been on something that day, cause I never figured out the wiring in that car, so I just re-ran everything, and it worked fine. Im glad I did anyway, cause I later found out the wires were all ****ed anyway.

 

Okay guys I'm new to the forum but I have a question I have a 1989 Camaro RS with the 305 TBI I am wiring up a Pioneer radio I have looked through this form and followed every direction but I'm still having an issue when I cut the headlights on the radio cuts off and I've looked at everything you guys have posted and still can't figure out what my problem is can one of y'all help

 

Did you read this thread? read post 2,3,4.