Hooking Up Touchscreen

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benschevy

New member
I'm in the middle of installing a touchscreen navigation unit. It's going pretty well but I've hit a snag. There are two long wires that are labeled for "back lamp signal lead" and "parking brake signal lead". I have no earthly idea where those are, what they are, how to find them or get to them, or how to connect to them. Basically... Help?

Everything else is connected but the unit won't come on so I'm assuming these have to be connected.
 
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benschevy

New member
I'm sorry this may be a really stupid question but I don't know where I'm supposed to look for those. I think if I did that would answer my next question too:

I got nearly finished today but the dash kit does not have an ignition wire. I can get the unit to come on by touching the red ignition wire of the head unit to the yellow 12V cable, but not when I try the red or any other wire on the dash kit. So where would I send this ignition wire otherwise?
 
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Chrish051873

senior member
It tells you where to find each wire.

If you can't locate them from that, then your install may be a touch out of your reach.

Chris
 
sonic007

sonic007

New member
So to answer some questions. The parking brake wire is used so video is not played on screen until the parking brake is up. This runs to the parking brake itself. You can bypass it depending on the radio. A quick google search can help there.
The reverse light input is if you have a backup camera to see behind you. This signal tells the radio to switch to the camera when you put it in reverse.
The new metra harness comes with an ignition. If not, you may have the wrong harness. A quick way around this is to run the red wire off the radio either to the positive cig. lighter wire or to the ignition wire at the bcm under the dash.
 
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benschevy

New member
Well it turns out I wasn't being a complete idiot. Called Crutchfield to get some help. The interface box of the dash kit was bad. They had me try a couple things to confirm. And the two wires I couldn't figure out are actually just different colored on the dash kit, so I don't have to run reverse light and parking brake leads. They are already right there. Whew!

Bad part is now I have to drive around with all this hanging out and sitting in my passenger seat for three days.

I also realized--a little belatedly--that the configuration options of the car (e.g. setting customized lock, light, etc settings) that were on the factory radio are now inaccessible to me. Guess I better hope everything is the way I like it! Ha! It's not a problem; just thought it funny I didn't think of losing that before.

Thanks for everyone's help!
 
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benschevy

New member
The replacement adapter box is arriving today and I'll be all done! I know this kind of thing is trivial to some, but I'm pretty proud of having done this project myself! :)

Two more questions while I wait for UPS.

1) While I've been driving these 3-4 days in transition, I haven't had the tick of the blinker signal nor the chime of the "hey your door is open and your keys are in the ignition". The adapter kit came with it's own "chime speaker", but I don't understand why I lost this function with taking the radio out. I wouldn't have figured that sound was tied to the infotainment center. Why is that and where should I install the new little speaker so that it sounds like it is coming from the right place?

2) The kit comes with its own microphone but I am hoping the car's internal mic will still work by some connection that was made in the kit. I have not run the kit's mic and really don't want to due to the side panel airbags. If the car's mic doesn't work, that may be the point I run by a shop and say "hey would you run this one thing for me". But is it possible to know if the car's mic is going to work? Or I guess wait and see?
 
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benschevy

New member
All done! It was difficult getting those last couple wires to work. Turns out the dash kit had one wire that was not compatible with the Alpine unit and a buddy had to help me run it over to the console under the driver's area and tap the parking brake wire. Luckily and for some reason, the reverse wire still worked on the kit though. Got it all in and working wonderfully!

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Chrish051873

senior member
excellent, glad to hear it is completed.

the only reason i have not switched out my head unit is because i do not want to lose the ability to change the car settings..
 
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Chrish051873

senior member
You will lose any of the car settings you do through the radio.

Such as door lock preferences, remote lock / unlock options, etc....
 
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benschevy

New member
I lost satellite radio (who cares? but if you do, I'm sure there are units that still support it), and I'm sure OnStar. No bluetooth, but I specifically bought this Alpine unit to work with Apple CarPlay, so it is not necessary. As Chris already pointed out, I lost car options. Also the temperature display. All these things to me are not necessarily essential. The biggest deal is probably the car options, but I haven't touched those settings since I bought the car 3 years ago. So no loss.
 
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benschevy

New member
Interestingly, Apply *just* announced yesterday that with iOS9, car makers will be able to install their vehicle apps on CarPlay. Now I very seriously doubt this will be retroactive, and even if it were, there's hardware considerations too, but I can hold on to a small shred of hope. Like I said, it's not a big deal to me that I lost those config options because I haven't accessed them since owning the car. But getting them back through an app that Chevy puts out would be nice.
 
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eDaL

Member
my stereo doesnt have satellite... that comes with the stereo or is like an adapter that comes besides de stereo unit? cause i'll like to have that installed on mylink unit. thanks
 
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benschevy

New member
All I can tell you is there is a yellow-ended cable that we determined was for the satellite radio hook up. But the Alpine head unit I purchased does not support Sirius XM so there was no place to plug it in.
 
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eDaL

Member
anyone who knows more about it? i want to know if i can put xm radio to mylink unit if it doenst come with it.
 
sonic007

sonic007

New member
Most mylinks come with it. There are aftermarket options but none will make it built in. You will need an external unit that canbe wired in to play through the speakers.
 
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eDaL

Member
here in mexico doesnt have xm radio so i saw that in the usa comes with it, I'm trying to see if I can order like in the agency directly to have the original one.
 
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