New kenwood head unit

Hi all. Picked up a nice kenwood head unit today to replace the old stock unit that's just about dead. Should I cut and solder the wires or wait until I can pick up an adapter to make life easyer? I have never fitted a head unit before so it might be a bit hard for me but I guess I can work my way though it. Anyone here fitted a kenwood system to there micra?

adapter is neater

if u are going to cut the wires all u need to do is look at the new one on the head unit and the stock on that u need to connect it to and match the colors

made up a harness using an adapter with the Nissan connectors since I could not get one that had a kenwood plug on the end. It was easy to solder the two up but the Nissan loom has a dash light wire that has none to hook up to on the kenwood plug. what wire do I solder it too? lights? ignition?

After trawling though dozens of Google searches I think the OEM dimmer light wire is not used/needed in the aftermarket head unit. Is this right?

nope just the stock two speaker set for now.

Ok the OME orange wire for dash light is not used on aftermarket head units. All working. Looks strange seeing the kenwood unit there after 12 years of looking at the stock unit.

Hah, Funny you should say that as I hacked up the Kenwood adapter I have as the Kenwood HU one of my cars came with was dead so used the adapter for another headunit. That said, if I weren't using RCA's to an amp with that, I'd be ditching the standard gauge speaker wiring from the HU to the speakers.. if you're going to do things properly.

---dens

I used the brackets that came with the OEM unit and while it fits ok I need to mod it so the HU sits a tad lower and out. I did not use the cradle thing as theres only plastic it can grip onto and that seemed a bit flimsy to me. Turns out the issue was not with the OEM HU after all and was one of the speakers at fault but It was time to swap over to somthing newer anyways. Now just have to find some speakers that will fit without mods as the window guide sits close to the stock speakers and leaves no room to spare and I want to keep it stock looking and Im not after much.

Jaycar "Response" 6.5" splits fit perfectly into the standard speaker cavities, albeit with some 10mm spacers or thereabouts (from memory). If you're not keen on cutting out your doorcards for the tweeters you might want to look for a set of coaxials. I haven't really tried fitting many other kinds but 6"-6.5" splits or coaxials regardless of brand are likely to be a good fit.

Just do some measurements of how deep you can go and start shopping :) That said, if you're going to replace the speakers, you're almost definitely going to benefit from running a separate amp.

As for mounting head units - I only ever use the 4x mounting holes either in the standard headunit cavity or down under there where the storage compartment sits (as there are 4x more holes exactly the same to be able to fit units down there).

---dens

Fitted some kenwood speakers and all is working nice. So nice to have a CD player in the car at last. Now I need to make up a new rear try and install some rear speakers. The rear harness is there right? All I need to do is locate it at the rear and hook it up?

Well with the rear speakers its now overkill and I think ill need to go around and tighten all the nuts and bolts lol she is shaking now.

Well I re-did the rear speakers today as my first attempt did not look to good. While its not as good as some custom jobs I still am really happy with the way it came out. Going to replace the boot carpet now as it looks so dirty lol.

side on.