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radio turns off when lights turn on!

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Old 12-28-2004, 08:41 PM
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radio turns off when lights turn on!

ok i have just installed my cd player and when i turn on my lights my deck turns off, and when lights go off deck comes back on! I have a friend with a 240sx that dose the exact thing. Is this just something with nissan or did we both put in the decks wrong?

I know it can not be a ground, because i have just installed 2 gage wire with a dry cell battery. any help would be verry usefull, thanks.
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Old 12-28-2004, 09:10 PM
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CDs require more juice than the old radios. The best place to get power is from your fuse panel. There are usually some extra slots that can be used for auxilary items. If there isn't any you can splice into one of the larger hot wires going into the fuse panel. You must put an inline fuse between there and the CD. You can get them at Radio Shack. Make sure you size the wire and fuse to the CD manufactures specs, probably around 15 amps and 12 gauge wire.
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Old 12-29-2004, 06:21 AM
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you hooked up the illumination wire thats coming from your car to a wrong wire... maybe hooked it up to a ground wire on your deck.. the best place for the ground wire coming from your dexk is wire it direct to your chassie..use a kight tester to see which wire is the illumination wire.. its the wire that powers up when you turn your headlights on..
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Old 12-29-2004, 11:10 PM
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i have found the illumination wire but i have hooked up the constant to the stock constant and the ignition wire to the fuse box. the thing is that someone has already hooked something up from the ignition wire to the end of one of the wire harnes plugs under the drivers side (baby blue wire, thick) so i just spliced into it. So should I just run a wire from the ignition wire under the hood? or should I make myself a new constant also?

If anyone knows of a write up please poste it. and thanks alot for feed back so far
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Old 12-29-2004, 11:21 PM
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When I installed my deck, I simply ran new wiring for it. The previous owners installed probably 3 or 4 different decks before me, so the wiring was hashed. I found out why my cigarette lighter never worked ... the losers that had my baby before me spliced a 6' power cord for a LAPTOP where the cig lighter would normally plug in. Did I also mention the wiring was hashed?

If it was me, I'd rewire it while I was in there anyway. But if your wiring is better than mine (I hope it is), you'll be alright. I think the Haynes manual has a diagram for the stereo wiring, among other things ... you'll have to look hard for it though

Hope this helps,
-Dave
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Old 12-30-2004, 08:45 AM
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use a light tester to see if the igniton wire shuts off when you turn the lights on.. or just run a wire directly from your ignition switch to your deck.. just recheck all your wires with a light tester first.. and make sure theyre all hooked up to the right wires on your deck..
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Old 12-31-2004, 11:15 AM
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thanks for the feedback. my stero wireing harness is intact(except what i have done), and had the stock radio in it when I got it. I wont be able to get in there till after new years so ill let you know how I fixed it or if I did.

another thing that is weird is that there are only 7 speaker wires! withch leaves me with one with out a power or a ground! I have heard that old cars used to ground the speakers to the body but I havent even had a chance to look (full time sucks).
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Old 12-31-2004, 07:18 PM
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The stock stereo combined the speaker grounds left to right, and independently front to rear. Did that make sense? I didn't think so ...
The front left speaker shares the same ground as the right front speaker, and the left rear speaker shared the ground with the right rear, eliminating two wires in the system. This sucks for sound quality though. I wouldn't recommend using the stock wiring anyway - it was only designed for 8 watts per speaker.

Hope this helps,
-Dave
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Old 01-04-2005, 10:07 PM
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ok this is officaly the hardest install I have ever had to do!!!!!!

ok today i ran a new constant and switch and also a ground to the bracket the radio or consol housing bolts on to. But when I pluged in the deck POOF there goes my deck in a small cloud of smoke! :doh: I have installed this deck in almoste 5 cars now and shorted it i dont know how many times before and nothing but when i hook it up it decides to burn up!! oh and when i tryed to roll down my window poof there goes the gage fuze!

anyway, I ran the new power wires from the fuse box and put a fuze on the constant(didnt blow). I am about to say screw it and come up with the $75.00 install. and the guy today told me that there are two amps behind the glove box. diffrent guy this time, so im starting to believe it could be true. Any input on where you ran your power wires would be great. thanks again.
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Old 01-06-2005, 08:37 PM
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success!!!! I have finally got everything working proberly and halfway mounted! once i get some more time I may do a write up on it seeing as nobody else has.

now my only prob is with the auto windows. someone has ghetto riged the window to my constant so when i roll the window up "pop" goes the fuze. so now ill have to hunt down the wires and fix there crappy splice job

anyway thanks for the help you have given my so far.
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Old 01-07-2005, 07:52 AM
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Good, I'm glad you got it done.

Factory car amps these days are usually a small siver box. If you have the talking lady warning voice, then one or both of those boxes behind the glovebox are related to the talking lady.
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Old 01-07-2005, 08:58 AM
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Originally Posted by mattduskater
and the guy today told me that there are two amps behind the glove box. diffrent guy this time, so im starting to believe it could be true. Any input on where you ran your power wires would be great. thanks again.
As a result, did you confirm there is NO amp behind the glove box?
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Old 01-07-2005, 11:04 AM
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and watch one of those guys unplug the amps. Then your voice warning system and cruise control stop working! ...maybe
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Old 01-10-2005, 08:03 AM
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I only have one front and one back speaker hooked up right now, because i bought some new mids and am still looking for some dash speakers. Once I go to install those ill find out if there are really amps or not. I want to keep the talking lady. and im sure the speakers are gonna be as big a pain as the deck.
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Old 02-03-2005, 08:09 PM
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great info my 81 had the factory stereo. i know now to run new wiring. i see the rear speakers and aftermarket tweets should do the trick. ill run them under the carpet.
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