Radio Wiring and Amp Bypass

[StereoInstaller1]

Because it seems when i cut the yellow/brown's and blue/brown's they will have made the solid browns that are connected to them in the plastic wrap (by my thumbs) obsolete.

Yes, please...just cut all that fader bullshit out, use ONLY the 4 twisted pairs.

I cut all wires the same length to keep it tidy, that is up to you.

[Wardie]

So, Luke after I called you twice I kept staring at it more and more and my brain turned off. I went out and bought the 50' of cable. From here I go ahead and run wire from the deck to the back of the amp correct? My brain has a habit to forget information when hungover and half asleep. Just a preemptive sorry for making you repeat yourself more than once. Car is a 1985 325E, no amp, fader.

Heres some pictures for fun:




Stupid early model always making things difficult.
I feel like I am over thinking this way to hard.

[ringmeister81]

This thread helped me so much! Thanks! My car is an 88' 325iX with premium sound, fader, and 5 wire setup (no twisted pairs). Stereo is an aftermarket Blaupunkt Acapulco... And it sounded awful!

Originally, it was wired all wrong under the dash and kept causing fuse 23 to blow and take out my dash lights and right side taillights.. It turns out that my wires for constant and switched power were different than what's shown on page 1 of this thread. Red/gray ended up being power.

So I rewired the deck and only the rears worked (with stock wiring and amp). After doing some digging, I realized the front speakers had been disconnected by a previous owner. So I ran new wires to the fronts, directly from the head unit. Finally, all four speakers were working! But.... It sounded like shit! Horrible engine whine through the speakers, weird cracklings and distortion. Thought one of the rear speakers was blown so I replaced them with some Alpines (SPS-510). Still sounded pretty bad. Finally just got up the courage to disconnect the factory amp, and repurpose the 4 yellow and blue wires to run the rear speakers, and, lo and behold, unbelievable sound! It was a bitch working in the trunk and trying to get the amp out, but once I did, the wires were easy to see and it only took me ten minutes to make the right connections.

As I said, the stereo sounds awesome now, unbelievable... I might even take the Alpines out and go back to the stock rears, seeing how you've all given them great reviews. Besides, the stock speaker covers won't fit over the Alpines now.

But, I do still have one strange issue. Like Heyrr said in one of his posts, my stereo will still turn on without the key in the ignition. I am baffled, as everything seems to be connected perfectly. I wonder if it has anything to do with bypassing the amp? Anyone have a solution? Thanks guys!

[Shurik]

I can't seem to find the right thread for my setup, could some one point me to the right place? I have premium setup but with 6 wires coming out of the fader instead of 8. How would I wire this into a new hu harness? Am I going to be connecting the back speakers to the front?

[Shurik]

Never mind I think I get it. I just have 4 wires from my fader sending sound to the amp, and there they split into 8 wires running to the speakers? So I wouldn't be able to wire an aftermarket hu without running wires to the back. I will just save up a little bit for the amp + RCA setup.

[FastAndLight]

I'm going to be trying this tomorrow in my '88iX with premium sound and fader switch. I've peaked behind the head unit the PO installed, and it is a disaster back there, so I'm going in armed with Luke's guide, the ETM, and my camera.

I plan to bypass the stock amp and just power all of the speakers with my new headunit. For the new wire runs to the two front speakers, can I just use normal speaker cable, like what I use in my home stereo, or is there some special stuff for use in the car?

From the ETM, it looks like the front tweeters are connected in parallel to the speaker in the kick panel. Will I need to do anything special to make sure they are connected when I replace the wiring? My tweeters have been sounding like complete trash recently and I'm not sure if it is the speakers or the wiring (or the amp?), any ideas?

Thanks to everyone for this thread, it is pretty awesome.

[FastAndLight]

In progress

Good Sunday morning project. '88 325iX premium sound with fader.

I started with removing the rear seats, center console, and front ashtray and everything so that I have a clear path to run wires straight to the trunk. I need to run a new antenna cable too because of the PO.



I removed the headunit installed by the PO. It looked like a horrible wiring mess, until I kept pulling, removed the fader switch, and saw that the PO's destruction was limited to the first 4" or 5" of the harness.



I've decided that I am going to remove the fader and its associated wiring and clean up the PO's mess.

I know Luke says that the factory wiring is awesome and to just re-use that. But, to minimize my own confusion, and since I have to run wire to get the fronts to work anyway, I'm just going to run new wire to the trunk for all 4 channels and then bypass the amp.

I feel like that way I will have a better grasp on exactly which wire goes where for the speakers.

I'm headed out to by speaker cable now. More photos later.

[FastAndLight]

Well, not sure what took the last 5 hours of my day, but:



Sorry for the blurry-cam, but the new head unit is in and sounds amazing.

Luke, I know you get this all the time, but you were so incredibly right. About everything.

Getting rid of the amp and fader made everything better. I don't think my previous HU was that bad (it was really badly setup and connected), but just connecting the speakers directly to the HU fixed everything.

I thought my tweeters were bad. They weren't, they sound awesome.

I thought in general my stereo was weak and my car just got bad radio reception. False. Stock amp was filled with sand (from when I had the car stripped, sandblasted, and re-painted). The stock amp also has been made obsolete by modern technology.

I added a ground cable directly to the back of the headunit and my radio reception seems to be amazing (after writing this I remembered that I also ran a new antenna cable, so that probably had something to do with it). That said, I haven't tested it too much. I haven't driven anywhere and my new HU has HD radio, so of course everything I was listening to sounded better (lots of HD radio in the DC area). Thinking about it, I was able to get in stations that I usually don't get from the house, so I am cautiously optimistic.

Anyway, I am so glad I did this. It isn't that hard, and it was a Sunday well spent, even if the lawn didn't get mowed.

I still have to get some blanks to fill in where I pulled the fader and I'm going to pull that dumb window switch the PO put in there that is wired to the locks. I'm going to copy the mic-in-the-blank mod that someone did.

Next up, putting in my e36 window switches and vaders.

Ooh yeah. Vaders. After that is done I might never leave my car.

[NeedaE30]

questions..

I am starting this project after the previous owner has hacked all the wiring.. i I have removed the oil covered aftermarket amp from the trunk tons and tons of wires just dangling around it and it certainly did not work.. the HU powered up but never had any sound... Fader switch has nothing at all connected to it missing left rear speaker. Pulled head unit out of car and found 2 wiring harnesses.. the factory harness hacked up and the aftermarket harness also hacked up... thick gauge aftermarket speaker/sub wires inside the dash but not connected to anything.. i dont even know where to start... I'm pretty sure since the fader is not connected and there was an aftermarket amp in the trunk, that the factory amp has already been bypassed.. I'm literally about to tear out my entire interior and start to try and figure this out ill take pictures as i go but if anyone has any suggestions please chime in.. i'm a newb when it comes to car audio

Printed first post to use as reference


couple pics of what im working with

Found this dangling inside the dash with only 1 wire connected it's heavy and looks to be from 1983 lol






also can i solder and heat shrink my connections without issues? or is it recommended to use crimp connections? which i dont have lol

[rscott]

I bought this receiver for my car, a 1986 BMW 325es. I bought it without a stereo.


http://i.imgur.com/XY5PrAS.jpg (click for huge)
This is what I'm working with, no idea how hacked up it is from the stock harness. Plug on the receiver is just a standard 16 pin Alpine.

Crutchfield says if I use this I can tap into the stock harness, for the speakers at least, but that appears to only connect two speakers, so would I buy two of those for the front and the rears? The big gray cable I know is for the antenna, and the white wire wrapped up with it raises up the antenna or something but I have no idea what everything else is supposed to plug into.

I've never installed a car stereo in my life before so I have no clue what I'm doing. What's the best way to proceed?

e: OK, it looks like I have the premium system, I have 6 speakers, the fader and what looks like an amp in the trunk but holy crap is it ever in an awkward location jammed up there behind antenna and all those brackets.

[ncsubowen]

Edit: 1987 325e

So, I spent my afternoon in the car and failed to do much more than get the fader harness cut off and the stock stereo removed. From here, I'm at something of a loss.

I was not able to find the amp in the trunk (the only thing that was attached behind the antenna was the lamp control). I do have a fader, as mentioned above, which I have removed.

Here's the picture of my setup as it stands. I don't really know where to go from here, as it appears that I only have 6 wires leaving the fader, and I can't locate the amp in the trunk.

[elcoy]

My brain hurts
So here is the plug from my fader. Don't see any twisted pairs. Are they behind the gauge cluster? This is a 88 vert. I have:
blue/red
solid blue
Blue /black
Brown black that has four connected together
yellow/red
Solid yellow
yellow/black
Gray/red that has four connected together
See pictures of wires
What do I do now

[StereoInstaller1]

Hey, steroinstaller.

I have a 1989 325ix and I'm having trouble with getting any sound out of my speakers. My goal is to just replace the head unit for right now. My car seems to have the 4 pairs of wires and I believe I have everything connected correctly. The head unit that I have turns on, lights up, sees my phone, and can select all of its functions, but no sound at all. Attached are some photos. If you can help me solve this I'll throw you a "tip" at your paypal.

Kindest Regards,

c10seth

[/URL]

OK, so, since all you are aiming for here is sound, lets get that up and running first.

You have not turned your stock amp on. I am sure you have noticed that there are two white wires. One is separate, but ran with the antenna cable, obviously enough that is the power antenna (solid blue on "deck side" if available) and the other is actually wrapped in the harness, that is how I can tell from here that your car has Premium Sound, your harness has 2 white wires.

That is why no sound, you didn't connect that white wire to the blue/white. No amp turn on, no sound. Powering up that wire is no guarantee of sound either, as stock amps are often dead, killed by water leaks most commonly.

No idea what these brown twisted with blue and brown twisted with yellow are for

These 2 twisted pairs went from the deck to the fader, thats all.

If you have unwrapped the harness properly they will just fall out anyway, no worries. Nice hunks of wire to save in the junk drawer!

Now, here is the next question: do you plan to bypass your stock amp and use deck power on your speakers, or do you want to take the easy-but-shitty way out and use the stock amp? If you want to use the stock amp, you need to connect the speakers a bit differently than you have there. Ask anyone who has done the amp bypass following this thread, it makes a world of difference and in your case it is super easy to do, just follow the thread.

Luke

[Big swifty]

Stereo Installer 1 your help is superb and much appreciated.
I have a quick question...

1989 325ix, no amp, does have fader. I have stripped back wires to the twisted pairs and have connected all speakers. Radio functions all work fine.

Problem is that if the headlights (2 orange dashboard lights really) are on, as soon as the FM antenna is connected it will blow fuse 23 and the 2 orange dashboard lights are kaput.

Is this an internal (head unit) issue or an external (installer) issue?

[efficient]

So I got my 86 eta that I have no idea about the wires. So far I have 3 speakers that work but when I turn up the volume it sounds like my speakers are gonna break. My car has a fader but doesn't have an amp. Can anyone guide me and tell me what the grey and red wire connect to. I been reading and Itconfuses me more. Been contemplating on just running new wires from the speakers.