new Stereo install = wacky wipers

[rreimund]

Hey guys..

For the record, I'm not a complete n00b when it comes to installing stereos in cars. I've done three of them in previous vehicles ranging from an early 90s Saab to a 1992 Golf to a 2001 Golf. I've always ordered from crutchfield - not because they are the cheapest but because the extras they send are worth the premium. Not to mention their tech support (though until now I'd never had to use it).

So.. I get stereo along with an intermediate harness (PAC OEM-2) that allows me to interface the new aftermarket head unit with the factory amplifier and a factory 13-pin harness to plug the factory harness into. Here's the rub though. I have an early E34 with no 13-pin plug. I just have a number of different wires coming in, and attaching with at least a half dozen connectors to various points on the stereo. You board veterans probably know what I'm talking about.

Now, after much frustration trying to accurately identify everything in the car and which wire from the aftermarket headunit should go where, etc. I finally get good sound out of the stereo, and the fade/balance work correctly (they had been reversed at various points, etc. I thought I was done, I put everything back in the dash, pushed in the new stereo and buttoned everything up. BUT... here's the funky issue:

When the radio is on, and I park the car, as soon as I turn off the ignition - the radio stays on, and the wipers start going. I've never had a problem with my wipers, and the switch operates normally when the ignition is on. Stereo also operates normally.. It's just that the wipers start going when it's turned off. The only way to stop the wipers is to turn off the radio. Once it's turned off, the wipers stop in mid-stream wherever they are on the windshield. After that point I cannot turn the radio back on nor can I turn on the wipers without putting the key back in the ignition and turning it to the Accessory on position. When I do this, I can turn on the radio if I desire, and the wipers will return to their normal parked position on their own.


Now then - any ideas as to where to look, and what I may have tapped into that I shouldn't have?

- Rick

One other thing... When I first hooked everything up, I attached all of the negative wires coming from the speakers (FL, FR, RL, and RR) together and attached to the ground. When I operated the stereo at high volumes, it would clip.. I then realized that I had two wires that I hadn't done anything with. They had been attached to a screw on the back of the chassis of the factory unit - they were brown with orange stripe and were apparently grounded to the chassis. I decided to also ground those to the negatives and the ground wire from the aftermarket harness. Once I did that, no clipping and the sound was much better. Could either of those have anything to do with wipers? - Sorry for the long post.

[gmannino]

ditch the oem.
follow wiring diagram instructions on www.bmwe34.net
leave negative wires disconnected but tied together.

[rreimund]

ditch the oem.
follow wiring diagram instructions on www.bmwe34.net
leave negative wires disconnected but tied together.

Yeah, I was working off of the diagram on bmwe34.net but I wasn't getting very far.

When you say ditch the OEM, do you mean ditch the PAC OEM-2 module? and just connect the aftermarket harness directly? That's something I hadn't thought of, as I blindly assumed I needed that to interface with the amp.

So you're saying (assuming the above paragraph is correct) that I should connect the aftermarket harness directly to the appropriate wires in the car where I had previously connected the OEM-2? Oh, and about the negative wires.. I don't need to connect those to Ground? As I think about it, I guess not.. what needs to be grounded is the negatives coming off of the speakers.. and that's already taken care of.. right?

[rreimund]

Bump... still happening..

[kick7ca]

Bump... still happening..

Are they wiping to the beat?

[rreimund]

lol..
I wish..

Why the wipers though? why couldn't it make the rear driver's side door lock work (that hasn't since I bought the car..)

[gmannino]

yeah, I usually connect the high output wires from the aftermarket deck directly to the inputs of the amp (behind the radio.) I've tried cutting off the rca wires, which will give you cleaner signal and less clipping, but the volume output will not be very high. You can use a PAC oem and then use the pod adjustments to adjust the gain to match the factory amp.

You obviously wired something wrong considering your problem with the wipers. try disconnecting the harness behind your new radio to see if the problem persist. If it goes away, the problem is with the wiring. If worse comes to worse and you cannot figure out the power wiring behind the radio, you can grab accessory and constant power at the ignition harness and ground at any metal that shows ground. This will give you the cleanest power with low noise.

your negative fl,fr,rl,rr speaker leads should be connected to each other and nothing else, including a ground.

[rreimund]

Well,
I've got to thank Greg for this one... I finally got around to getting back in there last night and I took my cutters and went to town on those wires. I ripped out the PAC OEM module, and just wired the headunit direct to the factory wires. Problem is now resolved. I now have much better volume output, the wipers do not go on randomly, and the dimmer function even works (i.e. the radio's illumination dims slightly when you turn on the headlights, so that they radio display doesn't over power the interior lighting at night). The last one is something that Crutchfield was telling me wasn't possible. I'm a bit disappointed - as I've had very good experiences with Crutchfield in the past on a 1992 VW Golf, 1992 Saab 900, and a 2000 VW Golf - they've never steered me wrong. But they were really off-base on this one. I'm thinking perhaps there's a more distinct difference between the early and late E34s (i.e. besides the obvious fact that the early ones had no standard "harness" with a plug) In any event, I'm a happy camper now.

Thank you once again, for all of your help. Greg's pointers really got me going in the right direction.

- Rick

[gmannino]

Glad I could be a help. BMW stereo systems were never easy to integrate into without having done many of them.