Car stereo help

ohskigod

Hello gang. While I have a pretty healthy knowledge base for home audio, I seem to be lacking on the car audio side.

I just purchased a base Silverado pick up with an am fm only radio. That's gotta go

I guess my question is. How hardis it to install a stereo. Never did car Stereo install before and what I want to do here is basic. Probably better speakers and definitely a head unit (on the cheap side. Don't need anything flashy)

I know best buy did an install for me way back in the day. Might go that route again if doing the install myself is too much of an undertaking

Just looking for general guidance I guess. Starting near ground level

Zeros

It's usually pretty easy. What year is the Silverado? I did car stereo installs for like 6 years, so I have seen my fair share of cars. Let me know the year and I'll see what I can dig up for you.

ohskigod

2011. I did talk to one install guy with a small shop that mentioned I need some $ 120 wiring harness To iinstall a stereo. I know you do if you have onstar but for a basic radio? That make sense?

Zeros

Dash removal:

http://www.gmtruckclub.com/forum/showthread.php?69940-2011-Silverado-LT-Dash-Trim-Removal

Head unit install in an 09 Silverado:

http://www.gmtruckclub.com/forum/showthread.php?69999-Need-Non-Bose-Radio-Wiring-Diagram-for-09-Silverado/page2

He used Metra part 70-2105 for the wiring harness, but apparently if you go that route you lose the door chime and OnStar. The adapter to keep the chime and OnStar is like $100+.

Here is the dash kit:

http://compare.ebay.com/like/250685200262?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&_lwgsi=y

Double Din dash kit:

http://compare.ebay.com/like/250695030012?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&_lwgsi=y

Dash kit and wiring harness that keeps chime and OnStar:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2011-Chevy-Silverado-Radio-Replacement-Dash-Wiring-Kit-_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQitemZ380292213427#vi-content

I hope that helps a little.

rdb2001

ohskigod wrote: »

2011. I did talk to one install guy with a small shop that mentioned I need some $ 120 wiring harness To iinstall a stereo. I know you do if you have onstar but for a basic radio? That make sense?

That is correct. I have an 07 Avalanche and use to have a decent system in my truck before it was broken into. You need that wiring harness if you want to use ur on star, hear your chimes, and things of that nature. If you dont need all of that then I dont think you need it. I bought and it kept all my chimes and I still used my onstar at the time. I have been thinking about putting another aftermarket headunit in my truck and not sure if I would needs the chimes and I dont use on star anymore.

If you order your headunit online, most include the dash kit and the basic wiring harness with the purchase. I like sonicelectronix. The have some great deals on refurbs and have top notch customer service.

decal

If you don't quite a bit about installs, I suggest you leave it to a pro installer. With all the electronics that go thru the radio, I think it would be your best bet. Stick your head under the dash and look at all the electrical wiring, it will probably change any thoughts about DIYing. Just my opinion, nothing more. Good luck.

ohskigod

I assume that's all the chimes. Like warning lights and stuff? I don't have onstar (worktruck)

Zeros

Here's some pics if you are interested:

http://www.silveradosierra.com/mobile-electronics/new-stereo-equip-in-the-morning-t4347.html

I'm still looking for chime info.


Maybe you can start a thread on that forum (silveradosierra.com) in the mobile electronics section. I'm sure they would be better equipped to answer your questions than our guesses.

About the door chime:

Re: New Stereo equip in the morning

Postby Chasmanian ? Jul 15 2011, 4:04pm
Special harness to keep door chime working. Also the chime will sound different as it will come from the new harness and not the factory radio. We have had some customers complain because it's not as loud as the factory chime.

From the same thread. It sounds like it is just the door chime.

rdb2001

ohskigod wrote: »

I assume that's all the chimes. Like warning lights and stuff? I don't have onstar (worktruck)

Any type of chime that comes through your speakers. whether it be door chime, low fuel chime, check engine chime, etc but I might be wrong. But if you dont have onstar, I am not sure it affects u. Normally it affects on star equiped vehicles.

Zeros

That chime is just annoying anyways, right?

exalted512

DSkip wrote: »

I don't think they go through your radio. I believe there is a separate speaker for the chimes, but I could also be wrong.


A head-unit install is nothing if you know how to match colors. The hardest part is usually figuring out how the new radio bezel mounts, and that's usually not too difficult either.

you're wrong:biggrin:

But seriously, GM trucks from 2003 all have the door chimes integrated through the radio and the chime is through the door speakers.

That expensive harness does more than keep your door chimes, it also gives you an ignition wire since there's not one at the back of the radio. I don't think I ever worked on the WT trim levels, but you might even lose the 'click' of the blinker. Put your ear to the driver door speaker and turn the blinker on. If you hear the clicking coming from your speaker, you're going to lose that with the expensive harness.

It sucks, but IMO, you're much better off getting the expensive harness. One of our other installers fried an ECM is a newer suburban when he tagged the wrong ignition wire for an amp install with the factory radio. I think that was about $1200 that we had to pay for.

I was under the impression that ALL 2011's had OnStar, now whether you had it activated or not is another question. Does your truck not have it at all? This really has nothing to do with the radio install, just curious for my personal knowledge.

But yea, get the expensive harness and do it yourself. Wiring the harness is as simple as matching colors and crimping. If you need help, you have more than enough knowledge on here to get you through it...along with what you can find online.

I highly recommend bell-style crimp connectors, you can usually find them at Home Depot:


And your install kits now come with picture instructions.
-Cody

arun1963

I suck at install so I won't even go there. Just curious if you thought about getting an amp+sub with the new hu? The sound quality would be better and you could turn it up a bit without distortion hurting your ears. The amp in the hu runs out of clean power real quick. Anything past 35-40% of max volume and you will hear the distortion.

Jstas

Crutchfield says y'all are full of baloney.

For a non-OnStar vehicle, you need a radio mounting kit like this:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_142GM1598B/GM-Chevrolet-In-dash-Receiver-Kit.html?tp=3121

And you need the relay like this:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_120E5000/Metra-E5000.html?tp=3121

To keep the door chime and such.

They say you only need this expensive bundle of copper like this for vehicles equipped with the On-Star systems:

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_120OSLAN01/GM-Factory-Integration-Adapter.html?tp=3486

Their hands-on research states:

Features

Overview: When replacing your factory radio, the Metra GMOS-LAN-01 is designed to retain the factory ONSTAR emergency services system and the warning chimes that would both be lost when the factory radio is removed. (Retaining the turn signal "click" requires an SPDT relay, item number 120E5000)

Note: The GMOS-LAN-01 is not compatible with amplified sound systems.

Applications: The GMOS-LAN-01 is compatible with the following Chevrolet and GMC vehicles.

* Chevrolet: 2006 Impala, 2006 Monte Carlo, 2007 Tahoe and 2007 Suburban
* GMC: 2007 Yukon

Chime Volume Adjustment: The GMOS-LAN-01 interface features potentiometer located on the 10 pin harness of the module, to adjust the chime volume of your vehicle. Rotate clockwise to make the chime louder and counterclockwise to make the chime softer.

Connections: The GMOS-LAN-01 consists of a single interface with a 10 pin connector on one end and a 12 pin connector on the other end. It also includes 2 harnesses. One harness includes a 10-pin plug that plugs into the 10-pin connection on the interface and its bare lead wires are hardwired into your new radio's harness. The other harness includes a 12-pin plug that plugs into the 12-pin connection of the interface and includes a GM factory plug that plugs into the factory plug behind the radio. It also includes bare wire that will need to be hardwired into your new radio's harness.

With the very basic model that Lou has, I don't think that $130 harness is necessary and if he gets his head unit from Crutchfield not only do they include the relay and mounting kit but he gets free installation help courtesy of the help line as well as their copious amounts of very well written and laid out instructions and reference material.

An ignition source isn't a huge deal though. It's not hard to find a switchable hot lead in the fuse box and piggy back a lead for the turn-on signal lead. The rest, power, ground and such can be run without a harness. Takes a bit more effort and time but completely doable. It's how I wired my Ranger up because it's a Ranger "S" and had a radio delete. Some other monkey hacked it all up and I had a huge task to straighten it out. I ended up ripping it all out and rewiring from scratch.

BTW, it helps to have a wiring diagram for the vehicle to keep from doing something like frying an ECM.

Jstas

Then again, if there's a switchable hot in the factory harness, why screw around with the fuse box at all? Find that switchable hot and pin-out from that.

exalted512

Any ignition source that we found in the new body style GM's was less than 2A. He had hooked up straight to the ignition per our wiring diagrams that was diode isolated into a relay to boost the power wire.

It fried the ECU.

Good luck, but I wouldn't do it.
-Cody

EDIT: I did say 'wrong' ignition wire. It was the right ignition wire, but evidently you're not supposed to tag the ignition wire coming from the column.

exalted512

Jstas wrote: »

And you need the relay like this:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_120E5000/Metra-E5000.html?tp=3121

To keep the door chime and such.

Also, the relay hooks up to the GMOS harness. It only has to do with the blinkers, nothing to do with the chimes. You don't put the relay in, your blinkers don't click.

I never worked on the newer model WT trims, but I'd venture to say, you're going to lose blinker 'clicking' if you don't use the expensive harness. Which he would be able to check by putting his ear up to the driver door speaker and putting his blinker on. If the speaker clicks, he's going to lose that by using a standard harness
-Cody

EDIT: I also want to add, that I have no qualms about going and finding an ignition source. My truck is supposed to have the expensive harness too. But my ignition wires are not 2A...and most of the time, you can find them in the fuse panel as well. I don't have OnStar either. (and it was never equipped)

That's how my truck was hooked up for a long time (until I got one of the expensive harnesses for free). But the newer trucks are a different animal. I have my expensive harness wrapped in sound deadening so I dont hear the chimes. My blinkers aren't through the speakers. I just like the retained accessory power feature. You can get it through the use of a relay, but it's more work

Jstas

Why bother with all of that if it's such an issue? Just grab a 12V 30 amp relay and run a power lead yourself. Then you can jack a 2 amp lead from an ignition source in to the relay without fear of frying anything. The relay isolates everything from everything else. Not only does it keep a 30 amp lead from frying a 2 amp lead but it also keeps that noisy 2 amp ignition wire from pumping noise down the line to your amp/source.

Like this:

[IMG]http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e128/phat_funky_beats/audio testing/HU_Relay.jpg[/IMG]


Keep in mind, that's for the ignition lead only. You run the power lead on a fused line straight to the head unit.

exalted512

That's what he did. Just swap 30 & 87.

Ignition wire, diode isolated into pin 86. Fused constant into 30. Grounded 85. Fused remote lead out from 87. It still fried the ECU. It's not an isolated issue either. Other installers have had the same problems.

That's why I recommend against it...and I was installing for 5 years.

You lose:
door chimes
blinker click
retained accessory power

You gain:
not having to hard wire into any of the factory wiring
not having to worry about spending $1200 to save $100.

-Cody

Jstas

Oh and you don't have to use an ignition lead either. You just need to find a lead, any lead, that has voltage applied to it when the key is in the accessory position.

When I did this in my Thunderbird for the amps (the old radio didn't have an amp turn-on lead, cheap Sanyo hand-me-down), my power seats and windows had a constant power flow under the ACCY position. I piggybacked on the hot side of that so that the radio wasn't affected by the switches to operate stuff. Worked like a champ.

My Ranger's fuse box was the same as the TOTL model. It was wired completely, whether I had power seats and such or not. So I found a 30A lead for the power seats was live, just didn't have a fuse in the slot to complete the connection to non-existent wiring. So I grabbed needle nose pliers, crushed a BUSS blade fuse and cut it in half. Took a 9/32nd drill bit and ran a hole through one end. Bare wire through the hole, a little solder and some shrink wrap and in the slot it went. Slot was off when the key was off but on when the key was on. Ran that to the head unit and later spliced in to it for an amp.

The only tool I used to figure this out was the car keys and a multi-meter with a 12V setting and needle tip leads.

There are ways around things. Any installer worth his/her salt should know how to build a simple relay controlled power circuit.

exalted512

Oh, and if you try probing around with a multi-meter on one of the new GMs and hit the wrong wire, you can set off codes that you'll have to take to the dealership to get reset (taking power off the battery for 30 minutes won't do it) if you're lucky, or deploy an air bag if you're not lucky.

We found a pin in the relay box on the firewall between the parking brake and regular brake that had a pin that was an ignition source that we used with success. But if you're already doubting your skills, I wouldn't do it. Plain and simple. Other than that one wire, we were never able to find another good ignition source. EVERYTHING is on a data wire. From seats to the windows. So there's a constant to give power, then a data wire to tell it what to do and when to do it.

If this was a new dodge, you could grab the power from the cigarette lighter, but all the GM ones are constants.

9 times out of 10, best buy won't do it either. They're going to try and sell the expensive harness or they won't install it. But if you just get the regular harness, it's nothing that anyone with an ounce of intelligence can't install by themselves with our help .

-Cody

Jstas

See, thing is, I'm having a hard time believing that the switchable lead for the stock radio in that harness can't be pinned out to a turn-on lead. I mean, that's what it's for so if you pin out to a turn-on lead for the radio then that shouldn't cause any adverse effects.

It'd be easy to find. Ground the multi-meter and then start probing the pins in that harness. Fine the live one and mark it. Then switch to accy and find the other live one, that's your switching lead. Pin out to that. And by pin out, I mean, go to the HELP! section or electrical parts section at Pep Boys or something and get yourself a box of pin leads. Solder a wire to it and jam it in the end of that harness socket where the ACCY lead is. Connect the other end to your turn-on lead and you're done. It's not rocket science.

And if you are that worried about the bonging telling you that you left your door open and it's played through the stereo, well, that's YOUR fault for buying a GM and not a more sensible vehicle.

exalted512

the 'oh' sounded a little condescending after reading that post...wasn't my intention. Just giving my personal experience.
-Cody

exalted512

Jstas wrote: »

See, thing is, I'm having a hard time believing that the switchable lead for the stock radio in that harness can't be pinned out to a turn-on lead. I mean, that's what it's for so if you pin out to a turn-on lead for the radio then that shouldn't cause any adverse effects.

It'd be easy to find. Ground the multi-meter and then start probing the pins in that harness. Fine the live one and mark it. Then switch to accy and find the other live one, that's your switching lead. Pin out to that. And by pin out, I mean, go to the HELP! section or electrical parts section at Pep Boys or something and get yourself a box of pin leads. Solder a wire to it and jam it in the end of that harness socket where the ACCY lead is. Connect the other end to your turn-on lead and you're done. It's not rocket science.

And if you are that worried about the bonging telling you that you left your door open and it's played through the stereo, well, that's YOUR fault for buying a GM and not a more sensible vehicle.

Its because it's not an ignition lead at all. It's a data cable...much like an OBDII wire. The box that comes with the harness is actually a chip designed to read the data coming out of that wire and through the use of the constant and the internal relays in the box, makes an ignition wire come out of the harness. It's not like it's just a low current ignition wire. If it was, we wouldn't be having this conversation. That's a cake walk

And I hate the stupid door chimes...like I said, I wrapped mine in sound deadening so I dont have to hear the damn thing (you can only turn it down so much). I was after the RAP feature (radio stays on until door opens). But on that year model truck, you lose the clicking of the blinker...which would bother me.
-Cody

exalted512

and I believe even the Ford's are going to this data wire type system as well. They were the last to do so(which made my job a lot easier...I loved non-amplified Ford systems). It's getting more of a PITA than it's worth to install a radio in some of these newer cars.
-Cody

decal

Like I said earlier, go to a pro !!!!!

Jstas

decal wrote: »

Like I said earlier, go to a pro !!!!!

:rolleyes:

Both Cody and I have done multiple installs both professionally and at an amateur level and I have close to a couple decades worth of automotive technician experience under my belt as well. There aren't many "pros" that will be much more well versed.

Jstas

exalted512 wrote: »

and I believe even the Ford's are going to this data wire type system as well. They were the last to do so(which made my job a lot easier...I loved non-amplified Ford systems). It's getting more of a PITA than it's worth to install a radio in some of these newer cars.
-Cody

I'm going to have to check some wiring diagrams. Not every system requires a data feed. You don't need a huge power feed to trigger a relay either.

Hell, even if you just wired a switch in to the power relay.

exalted512

If they're 03+ GM trucks, they dont chime if they dont have a radio.

You're not wrong that most of the time its a separate 'dinger'. Key word being most of the time. All your newer GM models have it through the radio. No radio, no chime
-Cody

exalted512

Jstas wrote: »

Hell, even if you just wired a switch in to the power relay.

Besides being ghetto...if you forget to turn it off you're in trouble when you try to start the car the next morning
-Cody

Jstas

If the radio is playing when you exit the vehicle an intelligent person would remember to flick the switch.

Then again, you are from Texas so I guess there has to be some allowances.

exalted512

Says the guy whose home state is the same place where 'The Jersey Shore' is recorded

I could see if you were on your cell phone and had the volume all the way down, one could forget.

Besides, it's a GM. Ghetto rigging doesn't fit into the theme like it would in a Ford.
-Cody