RyanPerrella

I am calling it a day on the rear hatch and now moving onto the new Alpine head unit install.

In the midst of this ive gotten to a couple questions one of which is specific to the head unit and the other a general issue that ive had for awhile since i lpulled the pod apart.

1) For the head unit install there is a pink with black stripe wire thats supposed to go to illumination. My old alpine is without this so its really the only questionable connection that i have. Where i I tap into to get this. I assume this affects the units illumination and works with the dimmer switch?

2) When I pulled apart the instrument pod i noticed sometime after then when i went to adjust the dimmer at night it adjusted and then i think the fuse blew and all the dash lights went out (A/C, clock, **** etc) The instrument cluster still works but instead of it going from bright during the daytime to softer and able to dim with the lights on it just stays in the daytime mode. I want to check the fuse first but i know i replaced it once before and it blew again, so I am pretty sure i have a short somewhere. Anyone know the fuse location off hand?

When i say the pod is apart i mean that it was removed and all electronic connections were unplugged to remove but i then plugged everything back in so that i could still drive the car while i was goofing around with the pod. So it could be that some wire is arcing out and shorting because all the switches are not in their correct location because there isnt that buffer so to speak that is provided when everything is bundled up in the instrument pod. I should probably take a pic to show what i am talking about.

I question my dinner switch and think if anything that the short is coming from the switch itself or from the wiring going to it. I will check to make sure there is nothing obvious.

There are quite a bit of electrical connections in the dash, there was radar system of sorts installed before and something like an alarm but i am not certian. It is very ugly and would like to remove most of the stuff as its never functioned to my knowledge since ive owned the car. But the last thing i want to do is start removing wires that are for something else. Such as when i cut a bunch of stuff and in the process completely severed my left side speaker wires. But perhaps this is something that i should do in person with someone at a get together in the future.

The issue i want to solve here is the interior illumination and finding which is the correct place to tap into for the radio illumination wire.

Thanks

Daymon66

ryan see if this helps any and my apologies if you have already done this.
http://www.nichols.nu/tip277.htm

RyanPerrella

Thanks I'll give it a shot

Your an audio guy, whats the pink and black wire for? Any idea what to tap into for it?

RyanPerrella

Fuse #9 is blown, I replaced it that should fix my dash lights and i will try and see if i can blow it again by messing with the dimmer and perhaps my dimmer is the cause of the short.

RyanPerrella

I replaced the #9 fuse. Its supposed to take a 5A fuse but i was all out so popped in a 7.5. Well i turned the lights on and when i did the instrument cluster changed from out of the daylight mode. So the fuse gets that part working. However as soon as i touched the dimmer and moved it even slightly to dim or brighten the fuse immediately blows.

Would this point to a faulty dimmer switch?

I dont know what they cost, anyone have a good used one?

leperboy

I doubt it, but it's easy enough to pull the potentiometer out. At least on an 86 it is. There is one or two screws that hold it to the pod. The screw also serves as a ground, so if it is loose, you can lose your illumination.

Anyway, get on your back in the footwell and look up at it. Maybe it's a loose wire. If the potentiometer is bad, though, you can tell by visually looking at it. It's corroded or the contact is loose on the wheel. (This assumes it is the same in 90 as in 86.5 - under the pod on the left of the wheel)

I think the problem sounds more like a big draw on the circuit, and the thing you most recently did was the stereo install...

Matt

JHowell37

The pink and black wire is the "audio interrupt input." It would plug into a car phone/hands free adapter, but I doubt you have one so it's not going to be used. Which model do you have? I checked several different Alpine HUs, and on all of them the pink and black wire is "audio interrupt in." Alpine typically uses the orange wire for illumination. Again, every current Alpine HU I just checked is set up that way. What I did on mine was splice it into the wire that powers the bulb on the cigarette lighter. It doesn't consume power, all that wire does is detect current and when it does, it slightly dims the lighting on the HU just like any modern car radio. Before you get worried, trust me, it's not very noticeable, but it prevents the display from being excessively bright and distracting at night.

If your potentiometer is bad just do what a lot of people do which is pull the two wires off and put in a small jumper between the two. 99.9% of people think the lighting inside these cars is **** poor to begin with and even at it's brightest possible setting, it still doesn't allow the car to produce as much light as having a jumper wire in there.

RyanPerrella

J

You know what your right, i am thinking of the wrong wire. What i need to hook up is the illumination which i mentioned but got mixed up and said it was pink when in fact its the orange wire.

I wasnt planning on using the pink wire which is the phone interrupt thing.

So what do i tap my orange illumination wire into, or do i just leave it be. The HU works great without it.

As for the dinner switch. My car is a 90 and it has a different switch. So i'm not too sure on how to proceed with it.

RyanPerrella

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Currently the pod is not in the car, the instruments are resting on the steering column and all the switches are plugged into their harness's. Such as the dimmer, but the dimmer is not mounted to the pod so i suspect this is my problem now. The pod's inner structure is metallic so that could most definitely serve as its ground, and in my case, since there is no pod, there is no proper ground. (This problem predates the stereo install also BTW.)

Q: if there wasn't a ground, wouldn't the circuit simply not work such as it does now? Why then does the fuse blow? or would the fuse blowing be a normal thing if there was an insufficient ground? (I don't know the first thing about electronics)

leperboy

That makes two of us. What I experienced when I pulled my pod was that the illumination did not work unless the potentiometer was screwed in tight. When it was loose, the dash lights were off. If I pushed it against the pod, the lights worked. When I screwed it tight, it worked fine. I didn't blow any fuses, though, just had flickering lights when it was loose. I don't know the reason for the fuse blowing.

Matt

JHowell37

You can tap the orange wire to the wire that powers the bulb on the cigarette lighter. I'd just cut the pink/black wire short and cap it. 928 International only lists one switch for the dimmer, so I don't think they're different. I just checked part numbers and they are the same as well.

RyanPerrella

The later model year has a different dimmer PN 928 613 031 00. I checked the price and its really cheap $36 so i think i will just replace it because i removed the switch and replaced the fuse and when i turn on the lights the fuse dosent blow. It blows when i mess with the dimmer, so perhaps thats pretty obvious.

I will order it when i get all the parts to reseal the transaxle.

aggravation

I tapped into that wire for the cigarette lighter for the illumination circuit on mine but the problem there is if you use your driving lights during the daytime your screen dims even though the sun is still out.
I'm guessing we need to find a wire from the headlight relay so the screen won't dim unless you actually have the main lights on....

RyanPerrella

Well i dot ever drive with the lights on during the day unless i am on long road trips on the interstate which i cant recall doing in any recent months.

JHowell37

The Alpine HUs don't dim that much, so it's not a huge issue. It doesn't matter which light source you tap into, they're all going to make it dim when the lights are turned on. That's what they're supposed to do.