I have the issue with no dash lights on the speedo or tach. This was after installing my Alpine 9887 which replaced another Alpine 9830. The old alpine harness didnt fit so I had to wire in the 9887 harness. My 04 ralliart has similar wireing as the Evo. I do have the other dash lights working. Oil, bat, seatbelt, door symbols light up.

I checked the fuses under the hood and the fuses under the dash. I did have the radio fuse blown and replaced it. All the other fuses looked fine.

The Mitsu harness has a solid orange wire that I connected to the Alpines solid orange wire. I am not using the the orange blk wire and taped it up. This orange blk wire may have been connected before so this might be my problem. If I were to connect it up, do you know were it should go?

I reseated the speedo cluster harnesses and ohmed out the bulbs for the tach and speedo, I think there were 4 or 5 bulbs. They check out ok. I also checked the orange wire's continuity from the Alpines harness to the back of the Mitsu's harness, that also checked out ok.

With the head unit out, still no dash Lights.

Any thing else I should look at or double check?

Thanks

 

I would try disconnecting the orange wire (dimmer) as sometimes this can cause issues with dash lights, at least thats what ive found on other vehicles. Try that and let us know!

 

Alot of times you can blow a fuse and it look okay, Need to test with a multimeter. There should be an insturment cluster fuse check that one
Disconnect the orange wire though behind the headunit. sometimes it will ground out the circuit

 

The orange wire should be your illumination wire. We never connect them or the dimmer wire because they can cause a ton of issues if not done correctly. Disconnect it and as stated above check all your fuses with a meter. That should fix your problem.

 

Thanks for all of your input. I will ohm out all fuses and get back.

 

I ohmed out all the fuses in both the cabin and under the hood. All checked out. Still no dash lights. I replaced the gauage light fuse just to make sure. Still no dash lights. I have to go in and disconnect that illumination wire next.

Crutchfields has a closeup and pin outs of the cars wiring harness. The only thing related to the dash lights is pin 3, illumination.

 

I'm not sure if the Evo's are equipped with a stock dimmer switch for the dash lights. But I remember when I did installs, sometimes depending on the location of the stock dimmer switch, I would bump into it and the dash lights would go dim. So if there is, check the stock dimmer switch.

 

thats true I have done that on mine before since the switch is down by my left leg. Just one of those things that you never think about until you have checked everything and then feel like an idiot.

 

The dimmer switched was bypassed by the previous owner. This is the second head unit I installed in this car. The first time, no issues.

I disconnected the illumination wire. Tried a different grounding point for the head unit, other than the dash area.to bare metal. With a meter I rechecked all the fuses under the hood and under the dash. They all check out. Checked the radio wire harness for pinched wires. Still no dash lights. I reseated all dash light related connectors. Still no dash lights.

Since the car had the dimmer switch bypassed, maybe the orange with blk stripe wire from the harness, was grounded. Orange/blk is dimmer neg. I should have paid more attention to the old decks wiring before i went in there and just started cutting out the old Alpines harness out. The old 9830 harness didnt fit the new 9887. Right now, this orange/blk wire is not connected.

I need to look at the schematic for the car side wiring harness to see if I should ground orange/blk. I dont want create more problems.

 

Reseated all connectors. Dash lights work. Thanks.