I've just ripped out my stock radio and am trying to install a new Sony Head unit, however i've encountered a jumble of problems with the wiring in my car, first of all i can't find the rear speaker wires, so i ran new wires from the rear to the front no problem, the main problem i am having now is that my cd player only works while my interrior and head lights are off, when i turn them on, off goes the radio. If anyone has any idea why this is happening i would appreiciate any help. i have everything wired just fine but for some reason when the lights go on the cd player goes off. i have tried just about everything and asked everyone i know if they can help me, but no one has a clue.

 

there is a wire in there somewhere that gets power to it when you turn the headlights on, it would normally be hooked up to a dimmer on the radio. my guess would be that you somehow have that wire hooked to something on your radio that it should not be hooked to

 

I just intalled a JVC CD player this weekend. The old stereo had a wire that was used for illuminating the stereo when the headlights are turned on. Most new stereos are always illuminated. Recheck your wiring and see that you have the constant power to the battery and then an accessory wire hooked up for the memory.

 

When I did my stereo a few years back I used as little of the stock wiring as possible because of how Mazda wired our cars.

 

i wired mine fine...just you need to get constant power for its memory. you just have to figure the wires themselves...it takes some time you'll get it. it took me about two hours to do it my self

 

I just did my stereo this week. I have and 85 GSL-SE, so maybe your wiring is different. There is a single wire black connector. Use that for the memory (constant+). There is a 6 connector block that only has 4 holes used. The wires used are in a sort of backwards Z pattern. If you hold it so the top right has a wire, then use the top middle for your power source (keyed +).

Get a circuit tester. You shouldn't do anything electrical without one.

 

I know what he did...

There is one wire which I thought was ground...

It's grounded when the lights are off... When lights go on, the wire goes to 8-12 volts.. (According to dimmer position.)

When wiring the stereo in the first gen there is no ground wire... Repeat THERE IS NO GROUND WIRE...

Tag a chassis bolt for your stereo ground. There should be a nice phillips screw right below the stereo which is good.

When I wired my old GSL, I had to sort through the wires because the previous owner removed an aftermarket and just left me with cut ends...

I have a stock '85 GS outside that I'll be putting a stereo in soon. I'll let you know how that goes.

 

Thanks alot for the help, its dark out right now so i'm gonna mess around with it tomorrow in the light, if the ground is the problem then i'm a damn fool, but that really had me confused when the lights went on the radio went off, as for the memory, I was able to find that wire quite easily, the wierd thing is i just wired up two head units, one for my friends mustang and one for my dads truck, no problem with them. Then i go to do my own car and can't get a damn thing to work, that was nerve racking. thanks again for the help, I greatly appreiciate it and will let you know tomorrow how it ends up. Oh yea, and the owner previous to me left me with cut wires, so i can't just get and adapter for the connector, just a bunch of touching this wire to that one ya know.

 

mine did that from lack of power, i had it rewired and it was fine. also i got a new batt.