ok I have an Alpine Headunit and im installing it into my 95 z. I got everythign all hooked up and sounding good...went to go for a drive and turned on the headlights and the cd player cut off. turn lights off, wait, player doesnt come back on. I hit power button on CD unit and it turns on. So i turned off the car and took the keys out. Sat there listening to the song that was playing and was getting pissed off....then i realized the head unit had not cut off, and stayed playing until I turned it off.

ok so any idea what gremlin might be at hand here?

 

First thing I can think of is the wire that dims the HU when the lights are turned on (display is supposed to become "dim" for easier night viewing -- brown wire??) -- anyways, have you tried disconnecting this wire and tried turning on the lights then? For some reason maybe that part of the HU is faulty? Did you purchase this HU new or used?

I believe it is the solid BROWN wire (in the "black" portion of the pin connector) that connects to the parking light input - so that the radio knows when the headlights are on.

 

it is a used head unit but the guy seems pretty forth commingabout everything so i dont think he sold me a faulty unit. I bought this car awhile back as a project car so its possible osmehting is fubar in the car istelf.

humm brown wire? i dont even recall having connected a brown wire. then again I jsut matched it up the harness and then plugged it in. I will give that a shot tomorrow thou...thanks for the advise! In the case that this is some how faulty in the headunit or if my car is screwie, can i jsut unplug that feature and let it ride?

 

If that circuit in the HU is faulty (for whatever reason) I would just leave it disconnected - no big deal, HU just gets dimmer when lights are on.

It really doesn't seem like that is likely the cause, but the fact that your problem happens when your lights turn on makes me hope that that is somehow related...unless the draw from the headlights for some reason has some weird effect on the alternator/etc.. -I know a lot of head units shut off if there is a large enough voltage drop - unsure if this applies here, but you did mention it was a project car - so maybe the power required for the headlights is enough to cause a drop...so then there could be possible alternator/battery problems? -either way, that's the easiest thing to test first is the brown wire.

 

your switched ignition power for the radio is somehow tied into either your dimmer or illumination wire... been there done that

 

In my experience, the dimmer wire is orange, not brown.

 

thank you all for the responses, ill be checking into it today and keep you all posted with either progress or more questions! lol...thanks a ton, very helpful.

 

Thanks - Yea I definitely should have specified -- it is brown on the factory GM harness, usually orange on harness connectors and those that come with the radio itself, but figured I'd be safer saying brown in case his is not the "standard" orange at the HU.

EDIT: If you are looking for the illumination wire, it is next to the brown parking light input on the GM harness I believe....can't remember what side, but its the one that isn't black -- but gray.

 

Yea the harness conversion peice that was left in the car form the previous owner was pretty messed up.

problem 1) the pins were not in the correct order
2) Ground and Power Wire Pins were sliding out.
3) Those two wires were crossed. the illumination and the memory
wires were crossed
4) Amp wires were all fubared
5) Factory stereo wireing in teh speaker slots was fried

the solution:
Amp, rewire everyhting, new harness, and 2 sets of components followed by a removal of everyhting not necessary!



thank you all for the help! it helped me alot in solving this problem. If anyone has a similar issue as this, PM me and I can try to help ya out!

thanks again!