E30 Stereo Wiring for Dummies

[BrooklynMW]

If one were to happen upon a convertible stereo wiring harness, can one install a convertible stereo wiring harness into a non-convertible?

[Todd Black 88]

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=2289130&postcount=1

This post has wire colours.

[rade30]

I am still using the factory amp, I located it to the back wall of the trunk. Sorry for my lack of knowledge, I am totally new to this stuff and this car, so how would I turn it on. Thanks for the quick reply

[Todd Black 88]

If you are using the factory amp still, you need to turn it on

[rade30]

Well, most definitely your car is Premium Sound..so, you are correct, the amp is not by the antenna, its behind the seat, bolted to the underside of the roof storage bin, under the trunk liner.

Oh, the rear speaker wires are a different color than the roof'd cars too.

Aside from that, what you did is use the stock amp, and crazy as it sounds, you did it properly...95% of the pro installers in America can't pull that off..but, if you simply find and use the 4 positives (/red, /black wires) that are on the fader, it will work fine.

Just like you said, tape off the "black striped" wires on the deck, all should be OK.

Now, since your car is an '89 Vert, you probably don't have 8 signal wires (2 pair) and most likely you have either 5 or 6 signal wires to the amp...so, if it sounds OK to you, you may be best by just leaving it as it is...but you will get a tiny improvement if you bypass the amp, but you will need to run wires from the deck to the front speakers, most likely.

If you plan to do a real system at some point, you may as well leave it, no sense running wires when you will need to run a bunch more then.

Luke

I have the same car as this guy, 1989 325i vert, and I have been trying to figure out my stereo for a while now and found this in hopes it would work for me. I have the positive wires from the aftermarket deck connected to the positive wires in the dash (black/yellow, black/blue, solid yellow, solid blue) and I am getting no sound. Am I missing something? The deck lights up and functions fine aside from this. I see that you referred to the positive wires as /black and /red, am I supposed to use those wires instead of the solid color blue and yellow? any help is appreciated from anyone, thanks.

https://imgur.com/a/zN5Qr

[TeXJ]

Trying to put a Pioneer head unit(DEH-X6900BT) into my 90 325is car. The car had an aftermarket head unit in it before and they cut the factory harness. So I'm trying to figure out what wires from the radio harness goes to the car harness. From all that, here is what I'm seeing:
Body harness:.......................Radio harness:
White(two wires)...................Blue/white(system remote control)
Brown/blk.............................Black
Violet/gray...........................Red
Gray/red..............................Orange
Red/green............................Yellow

I think the above are right...

For the speakers I have
yellow/brown
yellow/blk
yellow/brown
yellow/orange(maybe red?)
Blue/brown
blue/black
blue/brown
blue/orange(maybe red?)

Radio harness has these:
green
green/blk
white
white/blk
purple(violet?)
purple(violet?)/blk
gray
gray/blk


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[AndrewBird]

I doubt they removed all the original wiring as it is tied in with all the other wiring for the car. Dig around and I bet you will find it. They likely just replaced the speaker wiring and maybe ran new power/ground.

[BlitzkriegE30]

I'm a dummy and need wiring help.

Hello,

I know this is an old thread, but I finally stopped reading from the shadows and made an account to post here. Here is my situation:

My most recently acquired E30 (1990 325i) had an aftermarket Kenwood deck installed that I didn't want. I'm working to restore this one to as close as factory as possible, and I picked up an appropriate 'Pyramid' late model stereo. I removed the aftermarket stereo and it appears that the entire wiring harness was removed and redone with Kenwood wire. I have no idea what to do now. I got a set of clipped plugs from a guy who swapped an aftermarket deck, but I have no idea where to splice them in to work. Any help would be appreciated, because I'm at a loss.

[KrautnotRice]

Bump for a great thread.
I just installed an aftermarket deck into a '90 vert with premium sound and also performed the amp bypass, followed these directions and all is well, first try.
However, since it's a '90 with the fader built into the factory tape deck, it was slightly different, but given these directions I had a really good base to go off of and figure it out.

My advice to all: don't consider the stock amp bypass an option, it's a must. Just do it!

[StereoInstaller1]

I have read through mot of this thread,

My 86 E30 looks like the pictures and I wired it up with the fader's Blue and Yellow Speaker wires plugged into RCA ports in a DEH 1000 pioneer.

Yes I do have the ACC red wire to the VI/Green 12volt ignition wire that was going to the original radio

Yellow to battery constant

Blue white to Antenna

everything is grounded

It appears the amp is not switching on from the antenna wire as it is apparently supposed too.

I have no display back light and so its a dim screen. The Radio does not have an orange wire for the Dimmer connection which I have left disconnected.

I have read here some trick about switching the wires on the amp, I have not been able to find the amp.

The car does not have a trunk mounted CD changer.

There are a bunch of wires coming from the fader and I presume they go to an amp.

If someone can direct men to the amp?

Thank you

It's unlikely your 86 ETA has an amp. Premium Sound could be ordered, but it was like a $900 option, so its stupid rare. If you have one, I would be amazed.

Find your harness, unplug the fader and unwrap until you find the blue and yellow wires are just from the deck to the fader, remove them (oh, they dont go to RCAs, no idea where you came up with that) and use the wires to run the rears only, then run new wires to the fronts.

[conecaster]

Where's the amp

I have read through mot of this thread,

My 86 E30 looks like the pictures and I wired it up with the fader's Blue and Yellow Speaker wires plugged into RCA ports in a DEH 1000 pioneer.

Yes I do have the ACC red wire to the VI/Green 12volt ignition wire that was going to the original radio

Yellow to battery constant

Blue white to Antenna

everything is grounded

It appears the amp is not switching on from the antenna wire as it is apparently supposed too.

I have no display back light and so its a dim screen. The Radio does not have an orange wire for the Dimmer connection which I have left disconnected.

I have read here some trick about switching the wires on the amp, I have not been able to find the amp.

The car does not have a trunk mounted CD changer.

There are a bunch of wires coming from the fader and I presume they go to an amp.

If someone can direct men to the amp?

Thank you

[DirtyTh3rty]

gave in and just did it today haha so much nicer!!

[StereoInstaller1]

At that point, you may as well bypass the stock amp

[DirtyTh3rty]

88 325is premium sound

This is where I am at currently with the info I have found off here.
I deleted out the fader and ran the speaker wires to the harness and left the negatives unhooked still twisted. I have sound coming from all the speakers and the volume is fine but the quality is pretty bad no bass at all it sounds like the speakers are blown when bass hits almost but they worked perfectly fine just before I took it out.

What do i do from here did I do something wrong?
I only had 1 blue & white cable on the stereo harness so i had to put both white wires (amp & antenna) together on the blue & white. Is that my problem? Antenna drawing power from amp? or is it this common ground thing screwing with the speakers?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

[StereoInstaller1]

Yup, amp bypass