Where did my dash and indicator lights go?

[kiwi133]

So I just installed a new panasonic cd headunit, and finally have all of the pos bose system gone. Everything went fine until I may or may not have heard a pop and realized that there were not as many lights on. I think it happend about the time was testing the wires that turned out to be the dimmer wires for the stock head unit. One is grey and has a voltage on it when the headlamps are on (tells the headunit display to dim). the other wire is ground.

 

I have checked all fuses in the glove box and all are good.

It is basically every light that turns on when you close the car door, and that can be dimmed by the dimmer next to the headlight switch.

The head unit does not have a dimmer feature so that grey wire is not hooked up now.

 

Can anyone help me?

[GRANDFURY]

Did you cut the wire harness ends off the car and wire them up yourself? Or did you buy the plug connector from a stereo shop?

[kiwi133]

Ok, I got it figured out. Though my mom's lumina is now missing several 20 amp fuses

I wired it up myself because not even crutchfield knows what the hell kind of lodgic bose uses.

 

The problem was that there were two wires that uppon my recent close inspection, were not black (ground) but brown and brown/white. And as far as I can tell, the bose radio needs 4 wires to tell it to dim with the pk or headlams on! (brown, brown/white, grey, and black) wtf.

 

I was content at the time that I had identifed all wires, because why the hell would it need more than the grey and black wires to dim? the grey wire had voltage when parking or headlights were on.

 

So what was happening with the brown and brown/white shorted to ground was that the indicator/gauge lights would stay on all the time, and as soon as i hit the headlights, the 20A "tail" fuse would pop. With that gone, the interior lights that can be dimmed, the tail lamps and front parking lamps would not work. (i just noticed the exterior lights thing tonight)

 

Still not sure what those brown wires are for.

 

edit: in my first post i should have said "and i checked all the fuses that from there name seemed as if they could have been remotely related to the interior lights" tail fuse phffff.