I put in an aftermarket stereo in my 96 civic and wired everything except the two wires for the interior lights because i?m not exactly sure what to wire them through. Where do the red and red/black wires for the lights go?
If these truly are the wires for the dome light, then they simply get connected together. I have a service manual (found on the web) for the '96 - '00 Civic, and in that manual the wires for the dome light are described as LT GRN/RED and LT GRN/BLK (Not RED and RED/BLK as you have found). According to that manual, the RED/BLK wire is live whenever the parking lights are on (including when the head lights are on). The RED wire is from the dash lights brightness controller. All the dimmable lights in the dash are wired between this RED and RED/BLK wire, LOWER voltage on the RED wire means BRIGHTER dash lights. Your after-market stereo probably has a display illumination wire. Try connecting it to the RED wire and see if the display illumination can be adjusted with the dash lights brightness controller. If you are lucky, it will work just fine, in which case you carefully tape off the RED/BLK wire to avoid shorts in there. What you might see is that the stereo display gets dimmer as the dash lights get brighter, or you could see a host of other anomalies. If so, tape off the RED wire carefully and connect the RED/BLK wire to the stereo display illumination wire.
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