Pioneer - Metra - Orange wire - Installation help please!

2003 Tacoma
Pioneer DEH-80PRS

$5 Metra 70-1761 Radio Wiring Harness For Toyota 87-Up Power 4 Speaker

Metra 70-1761 harness adapter

I've read a bunch of posts about connecting the wrong orange wires together and either blowing a fuse for the dash cluster or even worse, burning up the rheostat.

Most seemed to involve a orange/black wire on the metra harness. Some say to leave all orange wires alone to avoid any problems.

The metra harness I bought (70-1761) that was packaged in 2012 doesn't have orange/black like most have reported about theirs.
It DOES have a mostly orange wire with a faint and thin white stripe on each side. (great marking). No other orange wires.

The metra key says orange/white is *Dimmer* whereas plain orange would be *illumination*.

Pioneer has orange/white and says this is for *lighting switch terminal*. (That's so helpful)

If I could, I'd like to have the radio light dim when the headlights are turned on. That would be *illumination* and not *dimmer*, no? I don't care about dimmer control via the rheostat knob.

Has anyone wired these and achieved that without blowing up their truck?

Should I just leave all orange alone? Nothing I've found online is very clear and my Metra harness which shares the same part number as others' somehow has a different orange wire.

 

Every head unit I installed I left that orange wire capped. Some stereos have their own dimmer settings anyways.

 

Thanks for the reply.

The manual for this HU says:

"To prevent the display from being too bright at night, the display is automatically dimmed when the car’s headlights are turned on. You can turn the dimmer on or off."

But I don't see how it would know unless it's tapped into the headlight wire somehow. (I guess that's what they mean by *lighting switch terminal*).

I think you're right though. The orange on the metra is probably not the orange that the pioneer is seeking. Unless someone else chimes in, I'll just cap them.

 

The OEM head unit probably already had a lead for the headlight signal and maybe the dimmer.

With any of the remaining unhooked wires, try using a meter to see its function.

Or, locate one of the free service manual sites and look at the radio schematic.

 

I get that, that's what I'm trying to figure out. It's not clear in any of the info I've found or from the info on the harness adapter I'm using.

Here's a diagram I've found:
https://www.installdr.com/Harnesses/Toyota-Wiring.pdf

There's no mention of an 'illumination' wire, which is what I'm looking for. The orange wire on my metra harness goes into slot "j" which is labeled "no not use".

The OEM radio definitely dims. I just don't from where it gets it's signal.

I also have the FSM with wiring schematics but either don't understand them or haven't found the info I need. That's why I asked here and also why I bought the easy hook-up harness.

Anyway, thanks for the help. I may just leave them out and save it for another day.

 

I sorted things out with some help over at customtacos:

http://www.customtacos.com/forum/15...etra-harness-illumination-wire-confusion.html

The conclusion is, if the orange wire is on pin 10 of the larger harness, it's fine to connect it. If it's anywhere else, best to leave it be. I connected it and haven't had any trouble so far. We'll see. The HU sounds killer.