warlord

first off i figured newer vehicles would make it easier to replace radios.. apparently not the case here.

i have a headunit that is older than the jeep and i want it in the jeep.

i have a base 07 so no special audio package or steering wheel controls or any of that jazz.

the headunit just has wires that need to be sliced in here is the radio for reference Robot Check

all my research on the topic brings up special wiring harnesses that work with the can bus system but they are also intended to operate with steering wheel controls and other features i dont have. also the only harnesses i can find seem to only be for pioneer or sony radios, isnt there more of a generic one out there

also i am hearing that these jeeps dont have switched power lines (accessory wires). what way does everyone find best suited for me to run switched power to my amp?

so 2 questions here

1. what wiring harness can i use for my headunit
2. what should i use to have key switched power for my amp

jKodiak09

Your head unit should have several wires coming out of the back. Those are colored and match (for the most part) an industry standard. You should see yellow (battery) red (ignition) black (ground) and then 2 gray, 2 purple, 2 white and 2 green for speakers. The wiring harness will plug into the jeep end and leave a set of wires exposed, those wires will match the color if the wires coming from the head unit. All you need to do is match the colors and crimp/solder them together. You will need a dash kit too though in order to have a clean install.

Now as far as the amp, you can tap into the red wire I mentioned earlier. This wire will signal the radio to turn on and off with the Jeeps ignition. There will be a terminal on your amp that says "rem" or "remote", if you run a wire from this terminal and splice that in line with the red wire from the harness that should be sufficient signal to toggle the amp. A lot of aftermarket head units have a wire labeled "rem" as well, this lead will delay the signal to turn on the amp by a few seconds and will prevent "amplifier pop", something that happens when you toggle your amp to power on too soon. I always recommend using this to turn on an amp if it's available. Keep in mind you will still need to run a 12V power directly from the battery and a separate ground. Hope this helps!!

warlord

thats all good information but im still stuck on what wiring harness to get, all the ones i find are around $150 (waay too much for a dongle and wires) and they seem to be made for specific headunits (eg. pioneer / kenwood).



is there a generic harness out there made for our JKs that wont screw up the CANbus system


i might be looking too far into it but im having a hard time finding this specific information before i drop any money on this

DunnyBunny

Metra 70-6522 wiring harness is all you need for a harness. It is as easy as it used to be. It comes with a red wire to tap into a 12V switched accessory. Since you will have the from face of the dash open just tap the cigarette lighter plug. It's easy peezy

For amp there should be a blue remote wire coming out of the head unit. You will run the blue wire that cones in the amp wiring install kit from the blue wire coming out of the HU to the REM port on the amp. Radio comes on with the key, then sends the signal to the amp through the remote wire to turn on the amp. Run a 4 or 8 gauge power wire from the battery to the amp and the ground the amp somewhere and your set up

DunnyBunny

Oh that metra harness can be found for $10-$11. Those expensive PAC units your looking at are completely unnecessary unless your trying to keep steering wheel controls.

Also the remote wire is the blue wire with white stripe. The solid blue is the auto antenna which we don't have so no need to hook it up.

warlord

thats a relief thank you

bombout800

The Metra harness should be all that you need. The pac and Metra can be had for like 80 bucks. It's as easy as it was 10 years ago. The wires are all labeled in the instructions. The blue wire with white strip is remote and the antenna wire is not used.

bombout800

That's a sweet head unit. As far as running wires? There is a factory grommet in the firewall on the drivers side. It's very easy to get wire through. I have 2 1/0 runs, a 4 ga run, and an 8 gauge run. All through this grommet. There are two awesome grounds under each seat below the center console. If you can fab up a mount to mount your amp(s) under the seats(to the seat frame) that's the way to go. Shorter run of pos, and your ground wire will be really short. Run rcas down the side of the console, along with your remote wire. That's it. Just run speaker wires and you're done besides tuning and tweaking.

eclipse3319

First the cig lighter on the left side is on ignition use that for remote wire

Second I attached photos of factory wires behind the radio so you can direct wire your stereo. Hope this helps

DunnyBunny

Head unit has a remote wire output specifically for the remote wire to input for the amp. No need to tap cig lighter.

Also I wouldn't suggest tapping directly into the factory harness. Makes it a hell of a lot harder to go back stock. It's a whole lot easier to just buy the $10 metra harness. Splice it to the head unit harness before ever installing and then it's pretty much just plug and play.