Glad to be a member of the community! We’re now the proud owners of a 2007 e4 and my wife especially loves it. Our e4 has one of the overhead stereo consoles and it worked ok, but there was no antenna connected and when the power was turned off it reset the memory. I bought a Kenwood marine unit (KMR-D362BT I think) because it claims to have full memory backup or something, and I was excited to find the presets do seem to survive power off, and in limited testing I think the paired BT phones do as well. However, the other settings, including the clock and fader seem to reset. The clock is no biggie, nor are most other settings, but the fader is a big deal to me as I installed rear speakers as well but because of the relative placement the fader must be shifted way to the rear to balance out the volume.
Does anyone know of a unit or manufacturer that stores all this stuff so it doesn’t get lost on power off? Thanks!
On a 2007 you have a constant power source for the memory. Older carts didn’t. You can also hook up a battery to the memory circuit. In many a 9 volt will do the trick.
Thanks folks! Both of these sound promising, but I’m only marginally able to grasp what the options are here. It seems if I’ve got that constant power source I just need to understand how to tap into it. The former owner had twisted the yellow wire with the red and that’s connected to a power wire which goes down under the dash. I haven’t traced it beyond that yet - I just copied it. Any idea where I could connect that? The diode sounds great, but I’m even more lost how to do that. And if there’s a soldering iron involved well, I have one, but it’s probably most useful to be as a self-defense weapon.
I’m definitely still in shell-shock from the amount of time it took me to mount the rear speakers, run that wiring, install the antenna, and swap the head unit out. I underestimated the amount of time cutting out the speaker holes with a Dremel would take, in particular. Getting the overhead unit on and off was also more painful than I anticipated.
That being the case, I’m trying to minimize further cutting or access. I think I’m obligated either way - taking the dash off to put the 12V gel cell there seems like it might be easiest if I can figure out how to keep it somewhat charged. Still not sure where the constant power in my 2007 is or how I’d use a diode…I did find instructions with a diode and a solar panel so I imagine it’s similar - just maybe without the solar panel somehow?
I have a micrometer so I can probably check that. I also found another post that said the following, which I may try, too. Unfortunately it will probably have to wait until next week:
For later model E2’s and most other models, remove the gray top dash piece first by opening the engine compartment and removing the three torx screws located directly below the windshield. From inside the cab, the gray dash piece is held on with velcro where the gray top meets the bottom white panel. Slide your fingers under the panel and pull towards you and then up to release. You may now remove the entire gray dashpiece. Next, remove the white bottom dashboard cover panel by removing the three hex head .screws located on top. Lift straight up and the white panel should come free. The fuse panel will now be plainly visible and accessible. To the left of the fuse panel you will see 8 spade terminals. The sixth spade terminal is constant 12v and is the only terminal that stays live (even with the key off). This spade #6 is fused by position #10 in the fuse panel (labeled “radio”). It is a 10amp fuse and controls the parking brake lockout switch. There are essentially three ways to tap in to this circuit. 1.) Use a “Posi-tap” connector on the red wire with white trace going to spade 6. or 2) Use a Y spade breakout adapter at spade 6 and plug-in your own spade wire lead to the adapter. or 3) Buy ($3) what is called a 10amp molded “pigtail fuse tap” made by Accele Electronics mfr part #5710PT (using this method you would not need to remove the dash panels, depending of course on how you want to route your new wire. Don’t be tempted to use the metal fuse tap tabs that you would find in Radio Shack for example. There is probably an extra 5amps or so that is available from fuse 10. This method will probably work on most of the other later GEMCAR models, not just the E2, but I can’t say for sure.
Hi I’d like to go the Posi-tap route but I can’t find them locally or in less than qty 10). Same problem with the Accel part. I’m leaning toward the Y shape adapter or the posi-tap if I must, but I have the dash on right now and I was hoping someone could tell me this. Would it be a single male to 2 female Y adapter? for Posi-tap, what is the gauge of that fuse wire? I have a 2007 e4. Thanks!!!
