Yellow wire needs to be hooked to a constant on 12 VDC source to hold memory. Redwire goes to a switched 12 VDC source to turn the unit on and off. Looks like someone butchered the wiring.

 

On this car does that really surprise you? Lol. Do I need battery unhooked to mess with this? Also, if I want to get a new speaker/speakers, how does that work.

There is a red wire hooked into that in the cluster but it still loses memory.

 

I would disconnect the battery for safety sake since you don't know what your getting into. As someone mentioned, try to find the manual for the unit on the internet, it will have a wiring diagram in it. IIRC, speaker wiring on head units is somewhat standardized, there is a positive and a negative going to each speaker. I think the colors are like purple and purple/black, green and green/black, etc for the speakers. Then you need to find the aforementioned constant 12 volt source for the yellow wire and a switched 12 volt source for the red wire. The black to ground. Do you have a multimeter? Before disconnecting the battery, use it to find your constant on and switched 12 volt wires.

 

In this picture, the yellow wire, is it connected to anything? That is the wire that should be connected to something that provides 12 vdc all the time. The red wire in there should be connected to a switched on 12 vdc source. The black wire should go to a good chassis ground. The other wires are for the speakers., should be 8, a pair for each speaker. Sometimes a blue wire is thrown in there as well, normally not used unless you have a power antenna.

 

So taking the pioneer and simply plugging it in there where the sony is isn't suppose to work anyway? Each HU uses different wires? If the yellow wire wasn't hooked then it wouldn't work at all, right? The one you're looking at is what came in the car and it does work. It just has no memory for stations etc and the overall sound in the car is crappy. Its hard to out do the sounds the motor makes.

 

Yes, the yellow wire needs to be hooked to a switched 12 volts. That turns the unit on. As stated before, the red wire needs to be hooked to a constant on 12 volt source to keep the stations programmed and clock right (powers the memory). If it is indeed hooked to a 12 volt source then there may be something wrong with the head unit itself. Are the yellow and red wires hooked together?

And no, even though the wire colors are the same, each manufacturer uses a different plug on the back of the unit. You would not be able to plug in a Pioneer connector into an Alpine for example. You can buy adapters that go between the cars original connector and the head unit wiring, but its normally a manual connect. It's a shame because you can buy an adapter pretty cheap. No reason for anyone to butcher the factory wiring.

I hardly use mine...I rather enjoy the sounds of my engine and exhaust.... : )

 

I will have to pull it back out and examine the wires more. It is possible they have red and yellow together. This was all like this from previous owner.

 

Ok the red wire is attached to an orange wire back in there.

 

Without knowing if you have power on those wires your wasting your time. The orange wire may be a power wire, switched or not. You need to get a meter and start checking for voltages on the wires mentioned in previous posts. The yellow needs 12 volts all the time. Do you have a wiring diagram?

 

I have a voltage tester. I can see about the power. I need to decide what HU I want to use/buy before I mess with much. I found the adapters for this Pioneer. Both of these HU's are old!

As for wiring this is the one for the pioneer. http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pi...3113225500.pdf