Stereo wiring question

I just installed a Sony HU and to make a long story as short as possible:

My car was broken into and my old Pioneer HU stolen along with hazard light and clock assembly. Replaced everything and stock HU using stock harness plug and everything worked except dash lights/illumination which is now working with my Sony HU i just installed. (The illumination wire from the Honda harness had no same color wire to connect to on Sony harness so I discovered that it needed to be connected to the ground (is this right/normal??

So my question is where I am supposed to connect the orange wire without the white stripe labeled "dimmer" to as there is no orange wire on sony harness either and it doesn't work with the ground lol

If further explanation/pics needed let me know thanks.

Also, is the blue wire with the white stripe from the sony harness the remote wire?

Thanks again

if theres no orange/white on the harness, youre out of luck as far as i know. ive never used that wire, ever...

normally, blue/white is the remote lead

ryan s said:

if theres no orange/white on the harness, youre out of luck as far as i know. ive never used that wire, ever...

normally, blue/white is the remote lead

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thanks...well I actually wasn't referring to the orange/white wire (illumination) as I connected that to my ground wire to make my dash lights work that have not worked for a month. (stated in 1st message)

So, what I am referring to is the orange wire without the stripe (dimmer).

I'm assuming that there is a dimmer wire coming straight from the dimmer switch on inst. cluster...maybe its orange and I could find it somewhere in the dash?? Anyone?

Thanks again

I think I've only seen a few HU's with a dimmer wire. I personally have not used one either. And yeah, the blue and white wire is the remote turn on

edit: posted too late, sorry. Also, I highly doubt that the dimmer switch from the gauge cluster is going to be orange. You might want to try a light tester and test the wires/connections. Adjust the dimmer, and if the light dims, thats the one. I'm not sure if that will work, but it's worth a shot

yeah, that was my bad on the reading.

rick is right. ive never owned a head unit with a dimmer.

I4 CG5 said:

I think I've only seen a few HU's with a dimmer wire. I personally have not used one either. And yeah, the blue and white wire is the remote turn on

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Ok thanks...yea I know that my whole wiring system is probably not normal to say the least...And the thing is that this stereo harness I got made my dash lights work and there is a dimmer wire so I am hoping that there is a way that this wire will make my dimmer work as well.

Thanks once again

Holy crap, I edit my post and two more are posted in that time! Read my edit about the light tester w/the cluster

I4 CG5 said:

I think I've only seen a few HU's with a dimmer wire. I personally have not used one either. And yeah, the blue and white wire is the remote turn on

edit: posted too late, sorry. Also, I highly doubt that the dimmer switch from the gauge cluster is going to be orange. You might want to try a light tester and test the wires/connections. Adjust the dimmer, and if the light dims, thats the one. I'm not sure if that will work, but it's worth a shot

Click to expand...

I have never used and don't own a light tester. The dimmer doesn't work at all right now though so I don't see how that would make it work...

I dunno, oh well at least I got my dash lights to work

Can you adjust the dimness of your dash lights, or do they just turn on? I don't have a clue why they would work after hooking up the illumination wire to the ground, but hey, whatever works, right?

I4 CG5 said:

Can you adjust the dimness of your dash lights, or do they just turn on? I don't have a clue why they would work after hooking up the illumination wire to the ground, but hey, whatever works, right?

Click to expand...

No I can not adjust the dimness
I should have been more specific that that is my one and only problem (for now): My illumination turns on at full lighting but the dimmer control does not work.

And yea "whatever works" IS right...funny story actually:

after I wired all the wires together (besides the illumination and dimmer wire that had nothing to wire to which I left untaped to see if I could figures something out... and put in the stereo in to see if it would work...and it was working...so when I started moving the stereo, the dash lights started working....but then I looked at the illumination wire and it was touching the metal bracket therefore getting ground...and while it moved (off and on from the metal) the dash lights started to flicker and the wire was sparking a bit....so I tried touching the dimmer wire to the metal to see if that would work too...but that just blew my "small fuse" and blew out my tail lights and parking lights...lol...
Went to get new fuses, wired the illumination to my ground wire, taped off the dimmer control. New HU is now installed, full illumination throughout car, but no dimmer control...
So I suspect that this lone (orange) dimmer wire would be able to wire to something i.e the dimmer control switch wire (whichever one that is)

other funny thing about this my illumination only works with this aftermarket Scosche $5 wiring harness and not with the stock harness and plug...even worse is that I took this to a mechanic who charged me $80 to tell me it was the instrument cluster -which I am glad I doubted him but sure wish I never took it there in the first place--

Thanks for any help and/or comments