Installation Question

CarMan1 · Post by **CarMan1** » March 14th, 2005, 10:17 pm

Ok, i bought my MX-3 from a kid who abused it... he apparently had an aftermarket stereo in it, because theres a big hole where the deck holder goes, and lots of wires... Im assuming he ripped it out himself, because all i can see is wires running back into the factory wireing, which is all covered in black tape... eww...

if i buy a new deck from Best Buy, will the deck come with a wireing harness that all i have to do is connect the wires to the factory one.. or am i in for a long long few days...

i can say that theres no plug on the end of the wires. just wire ends running out of my dash, which leads me to believe im in for a long few days... plz tell me im wrong... if i have to buy a new end for all the wires to connect too, where can i find one? any help would definately be appriciated on this one !

where do u guys find harness's that hook up to mx-3's? i check b-buy today and they didnt have any, they had harnes's but not one thatll fit my car

Acamori · Post by **Acamori** » March 14th, 2005, 10:39 pm

head units come with a wiring harness of their own which just have loose wires. normally you'd have to buy a plug that has a connector that connects to the factory harness and loose wires and attach that to the head unit. in your case, you'll have to figure out what wires go where (there may be a wire guide somewhere on this site, i seem to remember one) and attach them directly.

soldering would be best, but is really hard to do in the car. your best bet would be to get some crimp on splice connectors, easy and simple and they work well (much better than just twisting and taping). get that and you'll be good to go.

Grants · Post by **Grants** » March 14th, 2005, 11:21 pm

I've just added the wiring diagram for the radio circuit to my web site in pdf format - it's under "Info" - "Radio Circuit".

Its got all the wire colours so should help.

The wires on the new unit will all be well labelled so it shouldn't be too hard. And yes - just solder and tape or crimp them together.

TekPmp · Post by **TekPmp** » March 15th, 2005, 1:53 am

Be careful when directly splicing in a deck harness. The factory wiring only gets shorter as you change decks. Over time the factory wiring gets so short that it becomes impossable to work with unless extended. A permanent solution to this would be to pick up a mazda REVERSE and FOWARD harnesses from Bestbuy. The reverse harness is an exact copy of the factory harness that was cut off by the previous installer. You would have to crimp the reverse harness to the exposed factory wiring and then the foward harness would plug in to that. This way when you go to upgrade your deck down the road, there will be no fussing with the non-standard wire colors that mazda uses and there will be no need to extend wires because you didnt cut anymore factory wiring off.

Splicing your deck directly in is definately a cheaper method but it will eventually cost more in the long run for you or a later owner of the vehicle.

The FOWARD and REVERSE harnesses can be purchased at Bestbuy for about $18.49 each.

Most Car audio shops will do this (Rewire) for about $30.00 labor + parts

-Joe

CarMan1 · Post by **CarMan1** » March 16th, 2005, 3:06 pm

I have a old pioneer head that i ripped out of another car i had, the clip that plugs into the stereo is already on a clip to plug into a clip on the stock harness except i dont have a clip on my stock harness, only wires... if i bought the other end at B-buy would i have to rewire the harness as it is? or could i just plug one into the other and be done?

TekPmp · Post by **TekPmp** » March 16th, 2005, 5:38 pm

CarMan1 wrote:I have a old pioneer head that i ripped out of another car i had, the clip that plugs into the stereo is already on a clip to plug into a clip on the stock harness except i dont have a clip on my stock harness, only wires... if i bought the other end at B-buy would i have to rewire the harness as it is? or could i just plug one into the other and be done?

What Make/Model/year car was your pioneer deck pulled out of?

CarMan1 · Post by **CarMan1** » March 16th, 2005, 10:12 pm

a 89 beretta

MX-SLICK · Post by **MX-SLICK** » March 17th, 2005, 12:22 am

Has anyone noticed how thin the stock wiring is behind the headunit in an mx-3? the wiring i see in there is like fishing line, like 26 guage or finer....this is too thin in my opinion.

TekPmp · Post by **TekPmp** » March 17th, 2005, 12:09 pm

CarMan1 wrote:a 89 beretta

The harness you have right now connected to the deck should look should look like this (Scosche part # GM02B)

To keep this rewire as simple as possable, you can just buy the reverse side to that GM harness you have and splice in the reverse harness to your factory wires. After that all you have to do is click one harness in to the other and your done.

This is what the reverse harness should look like (Scosche part # GM02RB)

Keep in mind you will now have the factory deck wiring harness of a GM in your Mazda

Bestbuy sells the reverse harness you need for $18.49

Its not a problem if the reverse harness you buy is not two different harness' like the pic i posted above, Sometimes its all one big harness.

TekPmp · Post by **TekPmp** » March 17th, 2005, 12:28 pm

MX-SLICK wrote:Has anyone noticed how thin the stock wiring is behind the headunit in an mx-3? the wiring i see in there is like fishing line, like 26 guage or finer....this is too thin in my opinion.

Most definately is. When Mazda manufactured this car they did not have deck upgrades in mind. I ran all new 12 AWG wires from the 12v constant and accessory on the ignition harness. For the speakers I also ran 12 AWG wires from the deck and snaked them through the rubber door boots with a metal clothes hanger. The Ground wire was upgraded as well to a 12 AWG and screwed in to the firewall. Those factory wires travel across too many high current wires in the fusebox whick can affect sound quality. Running all new wiring eliminated a small ground noise problem
I was having

CarMan1 · Post by **CarMan1** » March 18th, 2005, 3:33 pm

ok, i actually cut the other side of the harness out also, i have both parts of the clip, theres 13 wires total, and i noticed only 10-12 in my dash, do i need to use them all? i even checked this diagram http://www.mx3er.com/Info/Radio%20Circuit.pdf....

it still only lists 12 wires.. that means 1 extra

also, is there somewhere i could look to find out which wires on this gm harness controlls what speakers ect? i have no idea, or if i bought a new one would it come with a diagram that tells me that?

ovendenk · Post by **ovendenk** » March 18th, 2005, 4:13 pm

i'd have to recheck my install, but i'm 100% sure that i had 2 wires that weren't used. 1 was the input from the dash lighting control and the other i think was for the alarm. again, i'm not 100% sure what the two wires were for.

TekPmp · Post by **TekPmp** » March 18th, 2005, 9:16 pm

The only standard wire colors your going to use are:

YELLOW
BLACK
RED
GREEN (-/+)
PURPLE (-/+)
WHITE (-/+)
GREY (-/+)

Do not connect the orange wires, these are used to dim the deck display with your factory cluster/lighting. Because there is no standard dimmer voltage set by all car manufacturers it is best to cap or tape them off.

The blue wire is a power antenna wire, no need to connect this because our cars dont have a power antenna. This wire will supply 12v as long as the deck is in AM/FM source mode.

The blue/white wire is commonly used as a remote amp turn on signal. This wire will supply 12v as long as the deck is turned on regaurdless of the source mode its in. Use this wire only if you installed an aftermarket amp.

CarMan1 · Post by **CarMan1** » March 18th, 2005, 10:06 pm

ok thanks a ton guys, ill try to put it in tomorrow. doesnt sound too hard

also, the reason im tryin to find out what colors mean is cuz the other end of the harness im going to use has 2 of some colors, like yellow has 2, has a light green and dark green, has an orange a grey 2 blues... might end up just wireing the original harness into the stock harness that way... then later if i have too lengthen the stock wires back up

manowar821 · Post by **manowar821** » March 22nd, 2005, 11:11 pm

Don't you use the blue power antenna wire as the remote on/off for the amp??