You know what...the HU was never grounded, WTF?!?!?!

Ninety-Nine SE-L · Sep 9th, 2003, 05:59 PM

ok, I got my car in early 2001, and I almost immediately got a new head unit in my car. The head unit came with an adaptor for Nissan--->Clarion. After 2 years, My clarion finally gave out and I now have an Alpine sitting on my desk ready to go in.

I was taking out the Clarion the other day, and when I took the last screw out of the frame, there was a HUGE spark, and the HU turned off. I was like WTF?!?!?! Well, after inspecting the Wiring (now that I got some work to do in there), I just found out that there is no grounding wire in the stock harness. B4, I was too inexperienced to look for that, but now I see it's true. The adaptor had a wire for the grounding, but since there is no ground in the stock harness, that wire does nothing.

It looks to me like from stock, the unit gets all its grounding from the antenna wire. Well, guess what, my antenna is not stock, it's an electronic one. Apparently, all this time, my head unit was getting all its grounding through the outer frame and screws, when I took the screw out, it lost all its grounding and shorted.

Just something for u guys to think about. I have a new harness going in with the alpine and I'm going to do all my chopping myself.

Playa123 · Sep 9th, 2003, 07:11 PM

Kind of funny, good thing you found out about all of this AFTER you decided to change the HU

Ninety-Nine SE-L · Sep 9th, 2003, 07:24 PM

good thing I didn't put in the NEW, new HU

Playa123 · Sep 9th, 2003, 08:17 PM

Well actually I had pretty much the same problem if you read in a post a while ago my HU got shorted from the amp. Anyway, A LOT of the nwe HU have little fuses to protect them

droppinbottom · Sep 9th, 2003, 08:27 PM

u guys guessed it no stock ground. i have never had any problems with my unit making a spark though. back in the day i have even rode in my 200sx with out it even being bolted in. just make a new ground to the housing that the radio mounts to or get really technical and remove plastic center console and ground it to the metal there be sure to sand area first

Ninety-Nine SE-L · Sep 9th, 2003, 09:10 PM

well, my new HU has a grounding wire, I'll ground that.

xt_out · Sep 10th, 2003, 08:18 PM

sort of off topic, buyt what do you do with the wiring to your antenna when you shave it???

Honest Bob · Sep 12th, 2003, 10:18 PM

Heh, I noticed in both my B13 and B14 there was no ground wire in the harness. It never worked without it hooked up though...