Electrical issue involving radio and lights.

[blackice21]

I have recently purchased a Nissan 240sx 1992 base model. It came with the factory tape deck in it however I believe at some point the previous owner had a pioneer unit installed. I went to hook up the wire and encountered a problem. There were two red with black stripe wires as well as a couple spliced in wires that came to a gold end cap surrounded by a plastic coupler, female ends. I thought everything was fine, it turned on, it played everything i wanted it to, I was happy. However when I went to drive the car at night and I turned on the lights, the power to the head unit completely shut off. As soon as I turned them off the head unit came back on and worked perfectly. What should I do, or rather where did I go wrong?

[Infinitiguy19]

Seems like he messed something up with the pilot lights to get the back light on the radio working. Look at the service manual here to see the wiring diagram...: http://nicoclub.com/FSM

[the converted]

Check where the red, yellow, black, and orange wires from the deck are connected to. It's possible that you didn't hook up the ground, or just mixed up a few wires.

[blackice21]

You were right, I went in and took out the dash and discovered that despite the correct hook up to the lights, the ground wire that I hooked into was hanging on by a thread to where it was grounded. I fixed that and now everything works fine on that end. Thanks for your help.