Rf Stereo Replacement Woes...

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
Long story short, the RF 6-Disc in-dash stopped working, figured I needed more space for switches, bought single DIN, Kit, harness... utterly confused with this RF system & the new radio. Now mind you I haven't installed an aftermarket radio since.... well 1995. So this factory amp/subwoofer business is beyond my scope.

The new radio has two harness plugs- one for power and another for all the speaker outs. Additionally it has 4 RCAs for pre amp outputs. I picked up two different harness adapters, one looks like your standard harness adapter and the other with RCAs hanging off the other end. American International NWH702 & Harmony Audio HA-707551 respectively. Now from what I remember from 1995, the former will be a breeze to install, but whats up with the HA harness with the RCAs and the aftermarket unit with RCAs? What's the proper way to do this?

Thanks in advance.
 

Muadeeb

Nissan al Gaib
Admin
Location
Dallas
With the factory RF kit, you'll want to use the RCA connections on your new radio if you're keeping the existing amp
 

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
First off, thanks for the responses. Time is an asset we can never get back.

So if I'm understanding this correctly I would only need to connect the power wires and use the RCAs to the amp, which goes to the speakers. Does this sound accurate?
 

Muadeeb

Nissan al Gaib
Admin
Location
Dallas
Yes. That's how you'd normally feed an amp anyway, with the rca outputs. Using the speaker outs to an amp just adds more distortion and wasted alternator output
 

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
Hmmmm, Well it didn't power. Either the orange "illumination" wire needs to tie into switched 12v, or I have a crib death on my hands as far as the aftermarket unit is concerned. Welp, I need to head out to pick up my 35"s. I'll come back to this when I'm properly fueled with several martinis.
 

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
Warning: Martini fueled.

So this is what I'm working with, and at this point I'm okay with not putting any of this shiat back in the rig. "Weight reduction" we'll call it.

Either I forgot how to use Google, or no one has changed one of these things.
IMG_20201117_205334342.jpg
 

meisanerd

Need Bigger Tires
What are the 3 unconnected wires on the harness labelled for?

I used the Metra harness when I did mine, but it shouldn't be much different than your Harmony Audio one. I think the only wire I had left was the illumination wire, as my head unit didn't support that, but I did that swap a couple years ago, and have done a bunch to various vehicles over the years, so memory might be a bit hazy...

Unfortunately for these vehicles, there are 2 different harnesses, and a lot of people do it the wrong way. There is one harness that is for the non-RF system, and one for the RF, and usually you get the non-RF one installed on the RF system, which just results in garbage audio as you are sending speaker-level signals from the head unit to an amp that is expecting line-level signals. It works, but you are amplifying an amplified signal, so it just gets loud and distorted.
 

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
They are not labeled. I'm assuming orange is for illumination according to some doc I got regarding the trucks wiring. I have to get a SMOG today as my registration expires tomorrow, I may just take it into one of the stereo shops by my house and see if they have the appropriate harness.

Additionally, there's the matter of the harness with the white connector labeled for speaker outs. I thought I had to use the RCAs!?
 

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
I've got power now, same wiring but the only difference is I plugged in the antenna and climate controls. Making progress...
 

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
It took a couple beers but I think we're getting closer. I looked at the color chart from ANOTHER harness I bought (3 in total) and the black/white is amp ground and blue/white is amp "turn-on", I'm guessing power. This would explain why the radio powers but I get no sound. I'm thinking I may just need to tie these into the radio ground and power and we should be all set.
 

meisanerd

Need Bigger Tires
Looking at the Harmony website, I like how they appear to have wiring instructions on the back of the package, that doesn't include all of the wires in the harness... I also like how they basically appear to have just used the Metra part number (Metra 70-7551 is what I used).

Hopefully finishing those last couple wires gets you going.
 

Prawn

First Fill-Up (of many)
Supporting Member
Location
Las Vegas
That did it. I think. I may have been mispronouncing the rites of activation incorrectly. Omnisiah be praised!
IMG_20201118_132757074.jpg
 
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