Head unit woes~

[tincan]

Picked up an Alpine stereo to replace my completely defunct stock unit.

 

Remembering distinctively that my Legacy had a complete hack of a wiring harness, I removed the harness from the stock unit itself. Low and behold, stock unit has 12 wires coming from it, but only 11 in the manual's schematic.

 

So I splice, tie connect, and get it all tidy - only to be met with lots of blown fuses and a headache.

 

I'm sure everyone who's done their radio knows; main adapter coming off radio has the 11-pin connector, and that the wires change color on the car's side. Pins one through four should be blue/yellow, black, red, red green, and correspond to switched 12v, ground, illumination, and constant 12v. The blue yellow wire, between the unit's connector and unit, has an inline 5A fuse. The red and red/green wires have another two flat terminal connector in the same place that goes back into the dash.

 

Each scenario has a common variable: turning the headlights on to make sure the illum worked.

 

First try; inline fuse in place, wired correctly, main and two pin connector plugged - no power, no fuses blown.

Second try; same as above, minus two pin connector, same result.

Third try; switched red/green and blue/yellow, no dice.

Fourth try; rewired to schematic, remove 5A inline. Connect wiring to car, minis two pin connector - nothing nothing nothing.

Fifth try; connect two pin as well, blow fuses 5/6.

 

Right. Now at this point I know something's (radio edit) wrong. Fuse five is where the constant lead passes through into the fusable link, and fuse six contains the illumination.

 

As for the twelfth lead coming out of the stock radio, it's orange and changes to green after the connector. Still, the fact the manual does not mention it (it literally doesn't come out of the radio in the schematic; completely missing) leads me to think it was added to the harness in 1993 when the car underwent it's final changes (or someone at Subaru is sadistic).

 

Any ideas? I should have used my test light last night but I will today... Cause this is (radio edit) ridiculous.

[tincan]

Test light success. Will be making a write up to save those of you time and money in case you feel like making the harness as opposed to buying one.

[Gloyale]

 Still, the fact the manual does not mention it (it literally doesn't come out of the radio in the schematic; completely missing) leads me to think it was added to the harness in 1993 when the car underwent it's final changes (or someone at Subaru is sadistic).

 

Your having trouble because you are relying on Haynes/Chiltons guides or some other generic wiring info.

 

If you had searched the USRM......this has been covered many many many times......Thanks for the enthusiasm......the write up won't be nessecary.

 

Don't buy a harness for these cars.....they will be wired to combine the front/rear grounds of each side like the factory deck....which does not work well for newer headunits.

[hatchsub]

I had a write-up here somewhere on the factory stereos and how to wire in a new one.  Gloyale is correct though that the factory combined grounds in their harness.  Therefore for every aftermarket stereo i have wired into an old subaru i have used only the constant 12v, acc 12 and one main ground.  All the speakers got brand new wires run out from the head unit.   Its more work than a modern car stereo install but you get good results if you take your time and soldier connections too.  

[Gloyale]

I had a write-up here somewhere on the factory stereos and how to wire in a new one.  Gloyale is correct though that the factory combined grounds in their harness.  Therefore for every aftermarket stereo i have wired into an old subaru i have used only the constant 12v, acc 12 and one main ground.  All the speakers got brand new wires run out from the head unit.   Its more work than a modern car stereo install but you get good results if you take your time and soldier connections too.  

 

This works.....

 

But is a bit more work than needed.

 

If you use the factory wires for just the rear speakers.....it's very easy to simply run 2 short speaker wires in the dash over to each kickpanel and connect to the speaker wires in the doors. (pink 2 pole connectors. wires are Yellow and Blue left, White and Blue right)

 

 

This eliminates the need to pull rocker trim, door panels, or anything at all except the kick panels....which just pull right out.

[jonas]

Cool, Picked up an Alpine myself recently. Always been a fan of Alpine. Howzabout a pic of your set-up?