Radio Wiring and Amp Bypass

[SFlan82]

First off, let me say that I followed the instructions word for word and the installation went flawlessly, so thank you very much. The previous owner hacked the harness up pretty badly, but I was lucky enough that he left some room for me to fix it. I think the extra wires going to the amp plug are power, ground and signal wires for the amp. I just taped them up and tucked them out of the way. I could be wrong, but that's what I figured and my stereo works great.

[StereoInstaller1]

Updated picture:


Some things that I need to have clarified.
1. Is this actually the right wiring setup.
2. What does that white wire coming out of the amp do? Where does it go?
3. Where does the brown wire coming out of the amp go? Is it one of the two that I'm seeing at the front of the car?

I'm going to draw up one for what the wiring should look like if you want to delete the amp once it's confirmed that this one is right.

WOW! What a great diagram!

That white wire is "remote turn on" and goes to either blue or blue/white of your new radio.

What did you draw that in?

Thanks
Luke

[StereoInstaller1]

First off, let me say that I followed the instructions word for word and the installation went flawlessly, so thank you very much. The previous owner hacked the harness up pretty badly, but I was lucky enough that he left some room for me to fix it. I think the extra wires going to the amp plug are power, ground and signal wires for the amp. I just taped them up and tucked them out of the way. I could be wrong, but that's what I figured and my stereo works great.

Fantastic! Very good to hear, hope you learned a bunch.

Luke

[MrDomino]

I just did it all in paint. Do you agree with the wiring? I'm going to finish up the one without the amp later tonight and post it up so you guys can check it out and make any corrections if needed.

[MrDomino]

So I just finished wiring up my radio and although it powers up fine I'm not getting any sound. I wired it up exactly like the picture above although I did twist the brown (amp 10) and the brown/black (amp 18 ) ground wires together before connecting them to the stereo ground.

What am I missing?

[StereoInstaller1]

You had a working stock stereo before?

There are 2 white wires BTW, one is for power antenna.

[MrDomino]

The stereo that was in there that the CD ejector died on was an old Sony CDX-C510.

It was hooked up in the following manner

CD player colors ......... BMW wiring colors
Yellow (12V battery) ......... Green/Red (12V unswitched)
Red (12V ignition) ......... Purple/White (12V accessory)
Black (Ground) ......... Black/Brown (Ground)
Green (Left rear positive) ......... Yellow/Black (Left rear)
Purple (Right rear positive) ......... Blue/Black (Right rear)
White (Left front positive) ......... Yellow/Red (Left front)
Gray (Right front positive) ......... Blue/Red (Right front)
Blue/White (Amp turn on +12V) ......... White. I'm not sure where it goes.

There are also ground wires for each speaker but they weren't hooked up to anything.

[MrDomino]

Here's the wiring diagram for the old stereo. I'm going to prod around tomorrow and see if I can figure out what the white wire is going to.

[MrDomino]

Here's the guy I'm trying to hook up.

http://www.bossaudio.com/auto/car-digital-media-am-fm-in-dash-mp3-usb-sd-aux-612ua/

[MrDomino]

After thinking about it some more I think it might make sense to just bypass the amp. I'm going to test it with one of the speakers tonight.

Just to be clear. I'm going to disconnect the amp and then connect the positive and negative wires for the left rear speaker to the yellow/black and yellow/red wires that run to the front of the car. I'm then going to connect these to the green wires on the new stereo. That way the stereo should be running directly to the one speaker.

If I do get sound out of the one speaker then I'll go ahead and rewire the other three speakers.

StereoInstaller1 can you take a look at the new stereo I'm installing and let me know if you foresee any issues wiring it directly to the speakers? I'm thinking that the amp is messing things up and that a direct connection to the speakers will work the best.

[MrDomino]

I just wired up the left rear speaker without the amp and it works great. I'm going to update the image to reflect what my final wiring is. I haven't actually tested this completely yet but it works on one speaker so I can't imagine why it wouldn't work on the other three.

[StereoInstaller1]

Yes, you can do that, but if you are going to bypass, it is easier in your case to run new wires to the front speakers and "re-purpose" the wires to the rear, using all 4 positive amp input wires to run the rear speakers.

That way you only have to take apart your kickpanels, no seat pulling required.

[MrDomino]

The car has a bolt in rollcage and a completely gutted interior (no back seats) or anything in the trunk so it's pretty easy. Getting to the kickpanels is actually quite difficult with the rollcage. As for anyone else I'd recommend rewiring the front speakers and then just hacking up the wiring in the trunk for the rear speakers.

[StereoInstaller1]

The car has a bolt in rollcage and a completely gutted interior (no back seats) or anything in the trunk so it's pretty easy. Getting to the kickpanels is actually quite difficult with the rollcage. As for anyone else I'd recommend rewiring the front speakers and then just hacking up the wiring in the trunk for the rear speakers.

Agreeed! Run new wires to the rear speakers!

[Quinthirty]

Thanks, Luke. I'll work on it over the weekend...