Which Illumination or Dimmer wire to use

motobrett · November 11, 2003

Which wire to I use to install a Kenwood into a 2000 Z-71 without Onstar? I have the Metra 17-1858 harness and the harness that came with my Kenwood receiver. The Metra harness has the orange (illumination) and the orange white (positive dimmer). The Kenwood harness just has an orange / white and it is labelled illumination...

Do I use both or just one?

Thanks in advance

Brett

02Tahoe2Quick · November 12, 2003

I would say just the orange/white.... which is what I did with my Alpine... BUT DONT QUOTE ME!!!

LogixRat · November 12, 2003

Where did you buy the stereo and adapter? If you got it from Crutchfield, they might have some documentation available for FREE. Even if you didn't buy from them you still might be able to access the wiring diagrams via their website, or maybe they can fax them to you. They might charge, I don't know.

Wingnut · November 12, 2003

I would say call the place that sold it to you.

Otherwise, the best advice I can give is try it one way, and if it doesn't work the way you want it to......Go the other way.

For some good wiring info, go here.

LogixRat · November 12, 2003

I would say call the place that sold it to you.

Otherwise, the best advice I can give is try it one way, and if it doesn't work the way you want it to......Go the other way.

For some good wiring info, go here.

Excellent link to bookmark. Thanks Wingnut!

Hehe, and I know what you mean by experimenting. That is about the only way I did it in high school. Wasn't no fun unless you tried every stink'n wire and crossed this and that to get the most bump from the unit. Me and all my friends done this a many times. Thanks for the reminder on memory lane....those were good times.

motobrett · November 12, 2003

I used the orange / white and the dimming feature doesn't work...maybe I will try the orange next time I pop it open...

KDC-MPV622, sounds a hell of a lot better than the stocker.

I used the Metra 99-3002 install kit and with some extra filing of the faceplate adapter that came with the kit and some additional chamfering of the ISO-DIN brackets the thing fits perfectly...

Thanks for the responses I appreciate it

Brett

Tucson_02Silverado · November 12, 2003

For Kenwood decks, you use the wire that is labeled illumination on the adapter harness. I'm not near a wiring diagram, but GM's interior illumination wire is usually as others mentioned orange, orange/white. You can test it with a DC voltmeter. Dash lights on = 12Volts, play with dash dimmer and voltage will change. On Kenwoods, it just looks for voltage or no voltage. Full deck display brightness with dash lights off. And deck preset brightness with dash lights on. Some models let you change the brightness for each of the two modes. It won't dim with the dash dimmer if that is the function you are looking for.

99-2door · November 13, 2003

I have a scosche adapter and a metra adaptor right here in front of me. The metra has both wires, while the schoshe only had a wire in one location. The wire on the scosche corresponds to the orage/white wire on the metra. So I would assume that is the wire that you need.

I used a scosche kit with my Pioneer and the dimmer works.