Fixing a sloppy install confusion...

[VeggieSlinger]

I bought an 06 Tahoe recently; I love almost everything about it, but the previous owner had replaced the factory head unit with a pretty crappy aftermarket unit. (Who knows why...) It looks like the truck was originally a non-premium Bose setup; there's no subwoofer in back, but there are Bose badges on the speaker grilles. This truck doesn't have Onstar.

To further complicate things, the wiring work on the previous installation was sloppy. It looks like an aftermarket wiring harness, but he wired red (switched power), yellow (constant power), and orange(illum?) together. Or course, the steering wheel controls didn't work either. On the plus side, it basically worked and sounded decent. I wanted an aux. input and prefer the unit to turn itself off after I turn the key, so I got a really sweet Pioneer FH-X720BT stereo, and the axxess ASWC-1 setup for the steering wheel controls. I unwired the POS (Previous Owner's Stereo), split the yellow/red/orange wires and matched them individually on the harness and re-used his pigtail for the Pioneer. I need to trim the plastic behind there, so I wanted to check it out before cutting.

I can't quite figure out where to tap the factory harness for the ASWC-1, so for the moment I've left that out of the system. I used crimped butt connectors to connect the harnesses together and plugged it in, when suddenly...nothing happened. No power at all to the stereo.

Okay, so it's been a long day. I can't fix it until tomorrow after work, but I'm hoping somebody can help me figure out a few things-

1) It's not the missing interface module that's holding me back, right? As I understood it, there's one module for door chimes (I'm hoping to skip it) and another to connect with the steering wheel controls. Neither should keep the head unit from powering on, right?

2) Speaking of the ASWC-1, where does that tap into the factory harness? According to the instructions on their website, it's as simple as "connect the pink wire of the ASWC-1 to pin A1 of the vehicle." They show a connector diagram, but it doesn't look at all like the unused one that (I assume) went the the factory stereo. Are the instructions wrong, or am I looking at the wrong harness?

3) There's a blue/wht cord on both the new stereo and the old harness; is it possible to use that with the factory amp?

4) For now, I'm assuming that I have a sloppy crimped terminal, but is there something simple I'm overlooking?

Thanks for reading...I hope this isn't more complex than it seems. Anybody have an opinion?

 

[Monkeyman]

Have you checked the fuses?

 

[VeggieSlinger]

Thanks for the response; Yep, I checked the 15A radio fuse and the 30A amp fuse underhood, they're both fine.

I'm going to change the crimp connections to solder this evening and see what happens.

 

[Rocket Man]

You might buy a cheap test light and actually test for constant and switched +12v and don't forget ground, its just as important as positive. And yes soldering is always more reliable; heat shrink tubing makes things real neat also instead of electrical tape. The steering wheel control has no effect on the stereo working. Also, I'm currently installing a unit in my Denali and using the PAC steering wheel control. It connects to a wire on the connector that is in use. I'm also using the PAC adapder to interface the new stereo to the Bose setup and the steering wheel control wires to the factory connector that goes to this adapter. It used to plug into the factory head unit. Not sure if I helped. I believe you may need an adapter to wire into the Bose system.

 

[Chiggy]

BTW with an 05 no one got the sub in the back. It's behind the center counsel below the dash. They just never changed the mold for the rear panel.
Can you get some pictures? I have a bose truck. I know that you need to connect everything together that was color coded the same and some things that weren't.

 

[VeggieSlinger]

Thanks for the replies; I went back and soldered all my connections, but that didn't solve my problem. I checked at the factory connector and found 12v on the constant, switched 12v looked good, and my fuses were all fine too.

For the moment, I'm operating the new head unit the same way as the crappy one I'm replacing (bundled orange/yellow/red) but I'd like to figure out what's screwed up at some point.

At least now I have something to listen to besides the pistonslap symphony...

---------- Post added at 01:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:18 PM ----------

One thing was odd- I showed 1.5M ohms to the only bare metal I could find. Got the same reading from the back side of the cigarette lighter to ground, so I figured it was my test location. (Bare metal of the dash support.) I figured if everything else works, I
my problem must be elsewhere.