If you're about to upgrade your Stereo read this.

[bondheli]

The speaker wires, dimmer, and antenna are pretty up front but I had some trouble in the power area.
First off, my Ignition/Ground were reversed from the following picture:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y22/bondheli/Old_big.jpg


2nd as it says on bmwe34.net, leave the negative wires of the HU harness untouched. I grounded mine and got no sound untill I clipped them.

3rd, my stereo did not need the antenna adaptor that bmwe34.net recomended, the stock antenna wire fit just right.

And 4th, as many people have said on this board, Hook the power antenna from the old harness to the amp on wire of the new headunit, and not the antenna on wire. This is because when the new HU switches to cd mode it will power down the antenna.

thanks to all the help this board given me, this was a fun little project and my first stereo install.

[callen]

Intalled aftermarket Pioneer and didn't connect dimmer wire...what color wire is it on factory harness.

Thanks
Charles

[Kalevera]

White, IIRC.

[bondheli]

Looks to be the small white wire. See the bottom of this page for a photo:
http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/Upgrade/Stereo_radio.htm

[Mobius]

Did you pick up the black box I mentioned? How'd it go for you?

I'm curious, because when I installed my new headunit about a year ago, I made up RCA adaptors for the stock wiring and tried to use the stock amp. When I fired it up, though, it made an awful crackling noise and the deck shut off. Scared the **** out of me, and I though I'd done something terribly wrong and roasted the deck.

Turned out, though, it was just that my (very old) battery had gone flat while I did the install and was severely underpowering the deck. I didn't realize this though until I was halfway into replacing the factory amp (this is a long story). :) -Not one of my prouder moments. I never got to figure out if and how well the deck worked with the stock amp.

[bondheli]

I ended up buying an eclipse head unit and using the harness. It does 20 x 4 peak so I'm not miles off from the stock amp's 5 volt requirement. The sound is great and I am very happy with it, so no need for the rca's.

I soldered all the connections following the diagram above and nothing....
Oh **** I have a DOA unit.
I metered the ignition wire and found the unit was not getting power.
I metered the ground wire and it had 12 volts going to it...
Oh **** I've killed my HU.
Luckily I didn't, and I was able to power it up after re soldering.
Next; no sound? I re-read a printout of the radio install and saw they had left the negative wires unconnected. I had mine grounded, so I simply clipped them and bam, beautiful cd quality sound.
Next morning, I found I had left the dome light on, the battery was dead, and I was locked out, but thats a different ordeal.

[Jon K]

I ended up buying an eclipse head unit and using the harness. It does 20 x 4 peak so I'm not miles off from the stock amp's 5 volt requirement. The sound is great and and I am very happy with it, so no need for the rca's.

I soldered all the connections following the diagram above and nothing....
Oh **** I have a DOA unit.
I metered the ignition wire and found the unit was not getting power.
I metered the ground wire and it had 12 volts going to it...
Oh **** I've killed my HU.
Luckily I didn't, and I was able to power it up after re soldering.
Next; no sound? I re-read a printout of the radio install and saw they had left the negative wires unconnected. I had mine grounded, so I simply clipped them and bam, beautiful cd quality sound.
Next morning, I found I had left the dome light on, the battery was dead, and I was locked out, but thats a different ordeal.


Just so people don't assume this will work all the time i want to clarify a few things.

1) 20x4 is wattage and channel #... 20w and 4 channels. Thats nothing to do with volts. youre eclipse is probably an 8-volt preamp out (RCA) but since you're using the amp inside the unit, the volts don't even apply here... you are in fact amping an amped signal, so the clarity will not be astonishing, but it works -- i had mine like that for about 6 months.

2) You said you had no sound when you had negative terminals connected. That's because the E34 utilizes a rather (and intelligent to some degree, in the mind of an OEM) complex and interesting common-ground electrical system. This means that the speakers ground to the chassis and not to the headunit. As you found, you can USUALLY remove the negative terminals from the headunit hook up and have it work... but this is not true for all cases. I had an Alpine CDA-7897 head unit, 55wx4... $600 headunit that would allow me to run common ground OR grounded... it had a self-sensing floating ground controller... so some people will say "Hooking up negative terminals works for me!" its because their headunit allows it. I have a more expensive Alpine (CVA-1004) that DOESN'T allow for direct ground (hooking up of negative terminals) or the internal amp over heats due to the ground short essentially and shuts off... go figure, more money, less feature. Regardless... I wanted to clarify that because people will see the topic of this post and think oh ok this is how it always works yada yada... just a heads up. I think i've had more head units and hours spent in my trunk than on any other aspect of my car... and i've replaced driveline...suspension, you get the idea. I did away with the factory amp and cross overs all together by running MB Quart 3 way components out of a CVA-1004 using the RCA Pre-amp to a dedicated Cadence 1/2 ohm stable amplifier, and I mapped out each an every speaker post-factory cross-over and cut them out of the circuit and wired to my MB Quartz cross overs. End result: amazing sound... headaches upon headaches... tons of wiring... and empty pockets.

[an535i]

I have a 1990 535i and have installed an aftermarket Alpine HU. All is good so far other than I cannot adjust the fade from front to rear; it has to be full front or full rear for the sound to be coming from all speakers..

What is the dimmer wire for? Im not clear on where to connect that one. Also I left my Illumination (orange) wire cappe. Can I assume that these two go together?

[an535i]

bump^

[Kalevera]

Yep - you're right on the money - the dimmer should connect to the illumination lead. PM Jon K about specifics -- he's installed Alpine HUs before and knows the details. IIRC, he mentioned an FAQ off of Alpine's web site explaining a lot of this...

best, whit