This may sound like a silly question, but here it goes anyway,

I just purchased a Clarion NX501 head unit for my 2000 jimmy. I've installed at least a couple dozen radios in my time, but not for a while now. In the harness for this, there is a brown wire that says Phone interrupt. In the manual it just says that when I apply a ground to this that it will mute the radio.

Now I am thinking that if you have your bluetooth set up, the radio should automatically mute when a phone call comes in or goes out. This brown wire almost seems like it needs a switch of some sort wired through it in order to manually mute the radio?

I guess I'm just looking for some clarification as to what I'm supposed to do w/ this. Of course I could ask Clarion, but I thought I'd check here first.

 

That wire won't be used in any case I can imagine in an aftermarket HU. Very few have a phone mute wire which means very few would ever even have it hooked up. As you mentioned if the HU has internal BT capabilities it will take care of all that on it's own, again rendering the wire useless.

I gotta ask tho, are you not using a harness adapter to wire that HU in with? If so then why not? Well worth the extra $8-$10 (or a little more) not to cut that factory plug off there and muddle through all that wiring mess. Besides that I've seen several dash fires, HU's and other things get ruined by people doing that.

 

Sure I'm using the harness. It only ever makes sense. I haven't butchered a factory harness since I was 16. I learned my lesson real quick on that one.

After I posted yesterday I did some more research and it seems like the general consensus is that this wire would be for vehicles w/ a built in phone that works outside of the bluetooth setup. This would get a ground signal going in automatically when a phone call comes in.

Thanks for your help.

 

LOL, yeah, sorry about that, but I had to ask. There's so many questions out there that start like that and the cause is the cutting of the factory harness. People do it so often it's really scary, at least to me it is.

Otherwise I'm glad to hear ya got it all figured out.

 

No problem. I've been a member on a lot of different forums. I know how it works.

 

It depends on how much room you have to work with and how many wires need to be repaired. In-line butt connectors are bulky and so they’re not practical if you have to do a bunch of them. That said, I agree with the previous post that the best ones are the heat shrink version because it seals the connection and you get strain relief. I use a different brand but the ones in that post are probably fine.

hands-down however the best way to do it is soldering and protection with heat shrink tubing. There is less bulk for each repair, it’s more mechanically sound, it’s more corrosion proof, and there’s a better electrical connection. you need good soldering skills to do this right. This includes cutting the wire back until you get to good clean copper because corroded strands don’t solder well. Then you have to learn proper soldering iron temperature and good solder flow to get a nice shiny solder joint. If you’re having trouble getting back to completely clean copper then the proper type of additional flux is needed to get proper solder wetting. Let me know if you need any help learning how to Solder and shrink wrap properly because I can help you there.

George