Pulling pins/wires out of std harness

[Astral]

How do you pull the wire out on the standard harness (Metra)? I'm afraid to push on it from the pin side (will bend the pin) and I'm afraid that pulling too hard will break the wire. Do you just basically pull and hope for the best?

I noticed it had the two extra wires ("autotel" and "elek ant"), so, as it was said, I need to move one of those...

Aydu said:

You just need 1 standard harness. I had the Metra harness (from Autotoys.com) and it came with the needed wires. Unfortunately, one of them is in the wrong location, so you have to pull it out of the wrong hole and reinsert it into the correct hole in the harness. Not a tough thing to do, as long as you know what the pinouts are for the harness.

 

[aydu]

I just grabbed onto the wire, closed my eyes, and pulled. Wire and pin came right out all together.

To get the pin into the new location, I removed the front of the harness; fed the wire through the appropriate hole in the harness - from the front - and then inserted the pin into the front of the harness. Pushing the front of the harness back into position forced the pin into the hole without bending anything.

As I recall, you might have to use somthing like a nail to widen the hole in the harness to accept the wire.

All this sound harder than it actually was.

 

[vetteguy]

These are the small pins in the middle. If you look into the connector so you are looking at the pins you will see a small hole just above or below the pin. Straighten out a paper clip and push it into the hole above or below (don't remember) the pin you want to pull and pull on the wire.

After you remove the wire look closely just above the wire where the pin is connected. You will see on one side that there is a side of the crimp connector that is sticking up slightly and pointing the opposite of the pin. Bend this up a little bit then slide the pin into the spot that you need it on the connector from the back side where the wires are coming out. It should snap into place and not fall out.

I just did this with a Metra Connector and I moved the blue power antenna wire to the dimmer or illumination spot (which ever is missing).

Hope this helps.

 

[Astral]

Well, I just got done setting up my harnesses. I went to Home Depot and got a set of jeweler's screwdrivers.

The Metra harness was the easiest to work with: I inserted the 2.0mm screwdriver into the slit on top of the pin and pushed down. After a little tugging and maybe a little more pushing, I was able to remove the wire. To reinsert, what vetteguy said.

Since the Metra harness is missing the dimmer wire, I moved the brown "autotel" pin into the dimmer spot. The blue "elek ant" wire remained in the top row and was unused, so I removed it from the harness.

The Schosche reverse harness (MA03R) was a much bigger pain in the ass. Removing wires was easy: used a 1.4mm screwdriver (the smallest in the set) to push the tab above the pin, slid it out a bunch, then used a larger screwdriver to lift the middle piece in the harness, and after a little pulling, the wire left the harness.

Reinserting took me 1 hr to complete, though. I'm probably missing some big chunk of the puzzle and someone familiar with the Scosche harness voodoo will probably laugh at me, but ... I ended up taking off the front piece (as per Aydu), and then proceeded to use a 2mm screwdriver to ram out a bigger whole inside the two new wire locations. After a bunch of ramming, and reinsertion attempts, finally the wire slid thru the front. All this ramming was because I couldn't insert the wire from the front or the back without it, even while lifting the center piece and/or the little tabs above the pin holes.

The Scosche harness is missing wires in both illumination and dimmer locations; however, the power antenna wire is present. Thus, I only really needed to remove one wire off the second harness for dimmer, and I just relocated the power antenna wire for illumination. I did manage to break one of the wires/pins off the second harness... lesson: don't pull out pins/wires with your teeth, even if you're frustrated.

(In the reverse harness, replace all mention of "pins" with "pin jacks" or whatever)

End result:

1 x Metra harness: move 1 pin, remove 1 pin

2 x Schosche reverse harness: relocate 1 pin jack on 1st harness, move 1 pin jack from 2nd harness, break 1 pin jack/wire while doing so (optional )

I took some pictures of the reverse harnesses before/after and the Metra harness after (forgot to take the "before" pic), but I'll put those up later once I'm done with the install.

Time to hook together all the wires except speaker wires and power on/accessory... just twisting them together and masking w/ electric tape should work, right?

[edit: grammar]

 

[aydu]

I used crimp wire connectors to connect the wires. Got them at Lowes home improvement center for about $1.50 per 10 connectors.

These work great. Basically, you twist the wires together. The crimp connector slides over the twisted wires and you squeeze the connector until a metal piece inside bends to hold the wires securely. Plastic outside covering.

There are several styles of these and they are all far better than just twist and tape.

Some perfer soldering the connections and using shrink wrap over the solder joint. This is probably the "best" connection, but the quality is dependent on your soldering skills.

After I made my connections, I used an ohm meter to make sure all the wires had good connections. Used an old Radio Shack type meter with the + connector on one wire end and the - connector on the other end. Showed me that the wires I moved in the harness were passing a signal properly. Touching the matching pins on the harnesses showed me that my wire connections were solid.

I found that this testing stuff is much easier to do on the kitchen table - before I start the install - than once I'm in the car and have everything torn apart.

 

[Astral]

I'll go pick up some crimping caps at Home Depot today.

I was thinking about using an electric tester (just to see whether there's a signal), except I don't have one, so I'd either pick one up or find someone w/ it.

The wires and the connections *look* pretty good, but of course one should make sure.

Thanks for all the tips so far! I'll post a detailed guide once I'm done and once it works well.

 

[Astral]

holy dead thread batman... heh

anyways, i just had to do the same exact thing for my rx8 (except i needed 3 reverse harnesses and 2 metra normal harneses to get enough wires), and i just wanted to mention that a straightened paper clip makes things much easier. the 1.4mm and 2.0mm precision screwdrivers that i was using 2 years ago were too short (didn't go deep enough to push the tab reliably) and too wide (messes up the clip that retains the pin).

for the normal metra harness, pushing the paper clip into the slot above or below the pin makes that pin slide out real easy. it snaps just right back in.

for the reverse scosche harness, no need to take off the front faceplate. to remove the pins, lift the center piece about 1-2mm (using a 1.4 or 2mm precision screwdriver), then pull on the pin socket. pull harder a couple of times, while making sure that the center piece stays raised. sometimes you may raise it too high (like, if you lift it by the edges, it kinda gets a little crooked), and so try pushing it back in a little. but a pretty strong pull to remove it.

to reinsert the pin into the reverse scosche harness, raise the center tab and slide the pin socket in some (from the back). give it a good push. it will go in some of the way, but not all the way. you really won't be able to push it much further, since pushing harder just bends the wire. instead, once you have it in some, stick the paper clip into the little square space above the wire. you'll feel the paper clip slide a little bit in and then hit the metal top of the pin socket. now, while ensuring that the connector's center piece is still raised, push on the paper clip to drive the pin socket all the way in. give it some pressure and it will cave in and slide all the way down. verify by looking at the reverse harness from the front, and holding it up to the light: you should see the pin socket slid all the way forward. now, you can push the center piece back in and you're done.

no removing the front piece or ramming any holes... no inserting wire through the front either... wire comes out the back and comes in the back of the connector.

hope this saves some frustration and broken connectors for anyone wishing to keep their stock radio.

also, do not buy any normal harnesses other than Metra 70-7903 (or 80-7903). all the other ones, including Scosche and some other one (that Tweeter sells) have one less pin/wire than the Metra (and so you'll be short on the illumination wires). if you can't find the Metra harness, you can always buy two Scosche harnesses and transplant a pin from one to the other (again, straightened out paper clip seems to work best for that).

 

[jandree22]

These are the small pins in the middle. If you look into the connector so you are looking at the pins you will see a small hole just above or below the pin. Straighten out a paper clip and push it into the whole above or below (don't remember) the pin you want to pull and pull on the wire.

After you remove the wire look closely just above the wire where the pin is connected. You will see on one side that there is a side of the crimp connector that is sticking up slightly and pointing the opposite of the pin. Bend this up a little bit then slide the pin into the spot that you need it on the connector from the back side where the wires are coming out. It should snap into place and not fall out.

I just did this with a Metra Connector and I moved the blue power antenna wire to the dimmer or illumination spot (which ever is missing).


Hope this helps.

FWIW, I used this method on my Scosche MA03B and got my lead switched to a different hole in about 2 minutes. Worked like a charm... and a paper clip fits perfect to 'unsnap' the pin. thanks! (thumb)

 

[NiCeBoY]

hey bro.. did you connect the Antena wire to the illumination wire or to the dimmer wire please?

thankx

 

[Astral]

hey bro.. did you connect the Antena wire to the illumination wire or to the dimmer wire please?

thankx

as per post #4, "I just relocated the power antenna wire for illumination"

dimmer is not as important as illumination

 

[NiCeBoY]

how did you relocate it please?

 

[Astral]

how did you relocate it please?

post #4 should explain the process. see the text about removing the pin...

 

[NiCeBoY]

what i can understand is to connect the (Remote antenna) wire from the head unit to the illumination wire.

also do you still got the picture u said here :

I took some pictures of the reverse harnesses before/after and the Metra harness after (forgot to take the "before" pic), but I'll put those up later once I'm done with the install.

i just want to make sure i dont blow anything in my car before i connect the Remote antena wire to the illumination of the car.

Thanks

 

[Astral]

NiCeBoy, you should not connect the remote antenna wire from the head unit to the illumination wire on the car--you'll definitely blow something that way. Unless you have a power antenna, you don't need to worry about the remote antenna wire from the headunit. You should just leave that wire alone.

All you need is to connect the illumination wire from the head unit to the illumination wire on the harness.

The Metra harness described in my post does not have a dimmer wire. So if you want dimmer functionality AND your headunit supports it (it has a dimmer wire), then you'd have to relocate one of the unused pins (autotel or power antenna) on the harness into the dimmer position, and then connect the dimmer wire from headunit to the dimmer position on the harness.

What harness do you have?

 

[NiCeBoY]

bro i dont have harness...

The problem is that my headunit does not have the illumination wire.

This is the wire connection of my head unit.

I am not using a harness..
I just cut the original plug off and joined the wires to those of the head unit.

Here is a picture of the connection i made.

http://amilsite.free.fr/cd-connection.JPG
thanks

 

[Astral]

What is your headunit? It is very unusual for a headunit not to have an illumination wire.

I can't see the picture, can you double-check the URL?

 

[NiCeBoY]

PM me your email bro, i will email you as attachment the image.. probably the hosted got your ip range blacklisted.
Yeah its a SONY CDX-GT400U

Thx

 

[Astral]

PM me your email bro, i will email you as attachment the image.. probably the hosted got your ip range blacklisted.
Yeah its a SONY CDX-GT400U

Thx

According to the installation guide, http://www.docs.sony.com/release/CDXGT400_install_guide.pdf the "orange/white striped" wire out of the headunit is the illumination wire. So your head unit does have an illumination wire.

 

[NiCeBoY]

so there is no way to get the lights inside on then?

 

[Astral]

so there is no way to get the lights inside on then?

I'm not sure what you're asking, "illumination" wire refers to the head unit dimming from bright daytime to darker night time. "Dimmer" wire changes how dark the night time look is.