Im tryin to put an aftermarket radio in my 84 caprice estate wagon and have a few questions about the factory harness. Ive looked up the color codes for what wire is what but cannot seem to find 2 certain wires and have one wire on the harness i am unsure about. Now i know i have to find a constant 12v to tap into, but i have 2 yellow wires on the harness i know one is the switched 12v but i am unsure which the other one is for. I cannot seem to locate the "Dimmer" Brown wire or the "Antenna Trigger" Pink wire. Can anyone help me out with this?? Constant 12V+: Orange Switched 12V+: Yellow Illumination: Gray Dimmer: Brown Antenna Trigger: Pink Front Front Speakers 4" x 6" Dash Left Front (+)Tan Left Front (-)Gray Right Front (+)Light Green Right Front (-)Dark Green Rear Speakers 6" x 9" Left Rear (+)Brown Left Rear (-)Yellow Right Rear (+)Dark Blue Right Rear (-)Light Blue
I used to do this all the time. My friends and I had a fleet of GM cars and we would constantly swap radios. I made harnesses once to go from the "old style" like yours to the "new style" (1988 and up for the most part). Your harness should have 4 plugs. The blue plug (top) is for the rear speaker wires. The white plug (middle) is for the front speaker wires. These two plugs are for your speakers only so that makes it easy. The black plug has 12v switched power (yellow), ground (black), illumination (gray), and sometimes pink (power antenna) depending on the car model. If your car doesn't have a power antenna, it might not have the pink wire. And if not, there's really no reason you would need it. If you're installing a separate amp or CD changer and need a turn on lead, just use the lead coming from your aftermarket radio. (If you were sticking with the factory stereo and needed a turn on lead for an amp, cd changer, or retrofitted power antenna, you would go to the junkyard and clip out one with the lead, or just clip out any one and use a baby screwdriver to insert the lead into your connector). That other little 2 wire plug that clips to the middle of the back of the radio is sometimes confusing. The orange is 12v constant power, we called it memory. The brown wire I am pretty sure was the dimmer wire, which was the illumination ground but fed a backward voltage when you turned on the headlights to reduce the illumination. But most of the aftermarket radios never really used the GM illumination method, they just had their own built in illumination when you fired up the radio. I don't know what they got nowadays though. My grandma had an 86 Caprice wagon with an AM radio. I noticed the faceplate was the same depth as a better GM radio and the mounting was the same otherwise. So I carefully cut a nice looking opening in the faceplate to match the new radio face, and bolted up the new radio. Perfect fit.
I don't have a pink wire and don't have the 4th plug that has the constant 12v orange wire. I only have 3 connectors I know 2 are the speaker wires and the other has the switched 12v. Ground. Illumination. And has another yellow wire that I am unsure what its for
