stupid question but i cant figure it out for some reason 97 expedtion, replaced the stock head unit with a pioneer, i used a wire harness and evrything. it wont rember the stations or anything when i restart the truck?? yellow wire coming from the dash to the radio is memory rite, red is power/acc?? ive tried evry which way and it still wont rember staions or anything?? what am i doing wrong?

 

The yellow wire from your pioneer head unit needs to be connected to a + source that has constant power i.e. hot whether or not the key is on, such as your battery positive terminal, or a wire coming from there. You can find one off the fuse pannel. You can check the wire off your harness with a tester to see if it's hot, if not you'll have to tap another source.

 

but there should be a continous power coming from the stock harness though rite?? i know it takes all 4 wires ( yellow and red from dash to yellow and red from HU) for the radio to even turn on, if i take 1 of those wires out of the mix it wont turn on. guess ill just run a wire off a fuse in the panel but i cant understand why the radio harness doesnt do it since the stock HU had memory??

 

The radio would turn on with just the red wire connected, it just wouldn't save all your presets without the yellow wire having power to it. You might check your fuses to see if you have a blown one that could be causing your problems.

 

1997 Ford Expedition Stereo Wiring
Constant 12V+ White/Purple
Switched 12V+ Black/Pink
Ground Black/Green
Illumination Blue/Black
Dimmer n/a
Amplifier Remote Blue
Antenna Right Front
Front Speakers 6" x 8" Doors
Left Front (+) White/Red
Left Front (-) Brown
Right Front (+) Green
Right Front (-) White/Orange
Rear Speakers 6" x 8" Rear Doors
Left Rear (+) Light Blue/Black
Left Rear (-) Yellow
Right Rear (+) Purple/White
Right Rear (-) Light Blue

The wht/pur wire should have 12v at all times and connected to the yellow wire on the harness.

 

ok, well the w/pur wire , what fuse is that running off of?

 

now if i had the 2 red and 2 yellow wires all connected together would this still allow memory assuming all fuses and all are good?

 

Your owners manual will show you your fuse locations and what they protect. If you don't have your manual, you can look it up here. https://www.fleet.ford.com/maintenan...ls/default.asp

As far as hooking your wires up you should do it according to the wiring guidace that ReAX provided. Hooking to the wrong wire can cause you a lot of problems.

You sure seem to be having a lot of problems lately.

 

new truck, trying to straighten out the PO messes,loL!!

 

just tried hooking it up like above, white/purple has no power?? all fuses are good? only way to get the radio to turn on is yellow and red from the HU connected to red from the dash, but that way there is no memory. i guess ill just have to run a wire direct from the fuse box but what fuse would power the 12v constant wire??

 

Can't believe you are working with the electrical curcuits and don't have a multi-meter or at LEAST a test light. One or the other will tell you where to attach the yellow wire to get hot all the time.

PS...I used the cigar lighter hot wire.

 

i do have a tester thats how i know the pur/white wire is dead. i know were to hook the yellow wire up if im gonna just rig up a wire to the fuse box. my question is WHY does the purple/white wire which is supposedly constant 12 not supplying 12v like it should, were is it fused? not that it matters really cause all my fuses are good in the cab and under the hood. im guessing it must be cut somewhere beetween the radio and the fuse, how i dunno cause the other wires in the harness with it are good??. i just ended up running the memory wire rite to the fuse box cause im tired of messing with it, memory works now

 

Using a large gauge constant is a good idea. Even after my big three upgrade, I still have a little dimming in my radio at full volume. If I change out the headunit, I am going to run a fresh 8ga for it from the battery.

I wouldn't expect someone to have cut the wire unless the dash was removed. It's probably a fuse not making a good connection, or internally shorted. If you have a DMM you can try a couple of test. First make sure it doesn't have continuity to the body (shorted to ground), Then take some voltage readings, ground to this wire (which should not be 0 unless it has continuity to your ground), Then try a hot wire this wire, it's okay to see a couple tenths of a volt, but you don't want several volts.

 

Check the fuses if you have a multi-meter or fuse tester. I've noticed that sometimes these knife fuses can blow but be hard to tell just by looking at them. I've came accross a couple that looked good, but when tested were actually bad.