[SoCal]

Hi! I'm excited to see a forum about a truck I've had for 15 years that I love, I am in Northern California, in a city called Chico, this truck has been all the way to the tip of Baja California in Mexico twice, I've learned how to do most of the work on it myself, and want to spend more time on this forum researching pass conversations soon, however tonight, just really curious about one main thing.... the stereo. I took out the original Clarion tape deck(Pn-1514H) and bought a Nakamichi NQ811B. I wired it myself, easy peasy, but not so easy, because the "power ant" of the Nakamichi, when touched to the blue wire with red stripe of the original wiring turns the onboard amp on and plays, but if I wire them together, it does not play, only if touched, if touched again, it goes off. There is also a black line with a pink stripe, and a solid green unused on the original wiring. I called Clarion and a guy named Clifton was super helpful to a point, but then recommended I ask a forum. It's getting harder and harder to do this stuff yourself, the whole industry seems against us do it yourselfers. I would love to know what any of you know about why it will come on then off. Thanks!

So - are you having trouble getting a separate aftermarket amp to turn on? If yes, what amp model and brand are you using? Nevermind - I re-read your post.

Do you have a wiring diagram for the radio that you can post a picture of?

 

[SoCal]

Not yet no, may if I can't get solid sound out of the door speakers, more so an internal amp in the dash that seems to exist, which I had no idea about until I talked to the Clarion rep.

I misread your original post. So you have an internal amp in your radio and it's not coming on when you turn on the radio unless you "tap" that wire.
Can you post a clear picture of the wiring diagram of your new radio?

 

[SoCal]

I just looked up the wiring diagrams for 1999. I don't see a Blue Wire with Red Stripe listed for audio. Anyway, here's a wiring diagram I found online. Make sure your new radio is wired to the correct wires.

If you are sure everything is wired correctly, then you may have external OEM amplification in the wiring circuit. Some 1999 Frontier radios had external amps - others didn't. So here's what I would try: Take the wires for one of the front speakers off the OEM harness and run them directly from the radio to a good test speaker (maybe you have a spare speaker laying around or a friend that does). If you get sound now from that speaker without touching any wires to any other wires, then your truck might have a separate amp that you need to bypass by running all speaker connections directly from the radio to the speakers (without using the OEM speaker wiring).

Does this make sense?

 

[SoCal]

You don’t need a special harness for speakers. Just get regular speaker 2-wire zip cord like this and run it from the radio to the speakers.