Installed Headunit into car, now Dash lights + Tail Lights not working

[TheLinkster]

Hi

My car is a 4 door sedan Nissan Pulsar 1996.

My friend installed the JVC G325 headunit into the car for me, because I wouldn't have a clue how to do it.

Well it is installed and the sounds seem to be working great, except for some reason the lights that illuminate the dash don't work anymore. Plus, the tail lights of the car also have suddenly stopped working, although the brake lights still work.

I have no idea what to do and I found this website while searching google to solve my problem, and it looks like you guys certainly know what you're doing.

Any information will be greatly appreciated.

PS: Initially my friend thought he may have "blown a fuse" so he checked the fuses and he said all of the fuses seemed to be fine. So now we have no idea what could have happened. Although i do remember him getting an electric shock while he was installing the headunit, maybe this has something to do with it? But he said he got a shock when he did his own stereo, but his dash and tail lights were fine!!

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[pwuthedon 10+ year member]

thats why i unhook the battery everytime i mess with my head unit or amps, my guess is that you blew a fuse, i know my car has 3 different fuse boxes, so you just gotta locate them and start pulling fuses

 

[TheLinkster]

Hmm. Where are the common places where fuse boxes are?

The fusebox in my car is under the drivers side of the dash. If there are more fuses, where are the common places?

 

[KaeZoo 10+ year member]

There is probably a fuse/relay box mounted under the hood.

 

[baseballer1100 5,000+ posts]

This happened to me it normally means you blew a fuse.

 

[TheLinkster]

hmm. thanks everyone. I will take a look under the bonnet and ill check the fuses again under the dash. Im not entirely sure what a blown fuse actually looks like because my friend was the one that checked the fuses before, but I guess it will be the one that looks different to the rest.

 

[TheLinkster]

Ok i found a blown fuse under the bonnet, and it was "10 Amp". I bought a pack of new 10 Amp fuses since the one that was blown said "10 AMP".

I replaced the fuse, but the fuse blew again, as soon as I tried to test the lights!!??

WTF?!

 

[MemphisLove. 10+ year member]

SAME thing happened to my 4 door sedan. well i ended up takin apart the main fuse box the fuse relay system inside the car and never found the problem. put it back together and it all worked fine. also does only one side of your lights work cause that was it in my case

 

[OldOneEye 10+ year member]

By any chance did you hook up the radio to the dash lights (the dimmer circuit, which can show 12 volts if you have the thing turned up) instead of the switched power? If you smoked the dimmer (which isn't designed to take a ton of power), that will take the tail lights with it.

They usually wire the dash and tail lights that way so you won't drive around with no taillights and get it fixed as soon as you figure it out.

Juan

 

[TheLinkster]

hi everyone. i had another friend look at it, and for some reason the factory wires seem to be quite weird, so he tested different things and has come to the conclusion that the best idea now is to just run new wires to the head unit. I think he said 3 wires needed to be run to "complete a circuit".

I think he said "Power" "Earth" and "Ground" but im not sure. Maybe he only said two wires, i cant really remember. Now ill have a look around and see how to run some new wires, i have already bought all the wire i need.

 

[OldOneEye 10+ year member]

Dude, I would quit while you are only a little behind (your dash lights don't work and you haven't fixed that).

You seem to have tapped into the wrong wires on the radio harness. Figure out which wrong wire it is, and then fix it and move on. If you keep hitting the wrong wire you are going to make things much harder to troubleshoot and fix.

Juan

hi everyone. i had another friend look at it, and for some reason the factory wires seem to be quite weird, so he tested different things and has come to the conclusion that the best idea now is to just run new wires to the head unit. I think he said 3 wires needed to be run to "complete a circuit".

I think he said "Power" "Earth" and "Ground" but im not sure. Maybe he only said two wires, i cant really remember. Now ill have a look around and see how to run some new wires, i have already bought all the wire i need.

 

[jmanpc 5,000+ posts]

nvm

 

[dleccord 5,000+ posts]

maybe one of your constants are touching ground still.

 

[yacob.naif 10+ year member]

most likely the wrong harness

they're not only make and model sensitive, but year as well

especially between obdI and obdII years

 

[coolahan 10+ year member]

Guys its obviously his fuse.. he threw a new one in and it blew.. rewire the headunit or go take it to a shop to have it installed.