Radio Wiring and Amp Bypass

[Javierocks]

Quick question Luke. After reading 31 pages I went to town on my installation. By the way I'm installing a e36 c43 business HU. The installation is on a 1985 325e no premium sound but it does have a fader. I wire all the power cables and i have power to the HU. I identify the rear speaker cables and found them as well in the front kick panel. whats confusing is that by the front driver side kick panel i only found 2 -'s a BLUE BROW AND YELLOW BROWN and all the +'s YELLOW BLACK, YELLOW RRED, BLUE BLACK AND BLUE RED. I used those two cables as my REAR -'S (BLUE BROWN AND YELLOW BROWN). So now i have my rears as BLUE BLACK+ BLUE BROWN - YELLOW BLACK + YELLOW BROWN -.Now if i was to just connect the fronts +'s YELOW RED AND BLUE RED with out negatives they some how work. I know you said that speakers don't share -'s so can they by connected to a chassis ground?? Previous set up was a JVC KS-F100. The set up was funky. They connected the SOLID YELLOW from the fader to the front + on the HU and the YELLOW BROWN - to the (-) of the HU. The solid BLUE wire from the fader to the front + of the HU and the BLUE BROWN - to the (-) of the HU. Fader would cut of all the sound if moved to one side and only play right rear if moved to the other side. All 4 speakers would work but would sound like shit. Im also replacing stock speakers with premium sound speakers.

[cWalk3r]

Omg I finally think I understand you're diagram on the first page lmao...

Car is a 1990 325i vert no fader with amp and tweeters

This is my wiring at the amp


I want to keep the factor hu and this is the wiring.

So since I'm keeping the factory hu would I just connect colour #2 and #3? Like I'd connect blue/red and grey/white at the amp wiring?

I probably have this completely wrong though lol

[cWalk3r]

Hey, I have no clue about wiring a stereo and don't understand how the e30 is setup. I've got a 90 325i vert with an amp. I think the amp is bad and not putting sound to all speakers, only some weird pulses and heartbeat noises but all speakers work and aren't blown. I'm gonna try and get my friend to help me get the system working again. I have no real clue to what I'm doing lol

Also my antenna didn't work so I just removed it today. What type of connection does the antenna use and will a newer antenna hook up no problem?

[iPee]

Yea it was a bit of a mess. I ended up running new wires instead, didn't want to have that many crimps running from speaker to amp. System sounds a lot better, but I blew my sub in the middle of tuning it haha. Going to pick up one of your boxes while the deal is going on and a new sub.

[StereoInstaller1]

Ivan, you poor guy, what a mess!

If I were you, since you are planning to do a real amp and a proper install, you would likely be best to try to get back to stock. Hopefully all the wire is still there, just cross-connected and hacked to bits.

I bet the speakers themselves are all jacked up too, you are going to want to get the colors straight from deck to trunk, then from trunk to speakers. Hope it all works, and really it shouldn't be too bad.

GL!
Luke

[iPee]

Hi guys,

I've finally finished reading the thread over the last couple days. I have a 91' 318is w/premium sound (tweeters and no fader), so this is supposed to be the easiest one. My goal is to install a deck and power the speakers with a 4 channel amp.

Everything seemed clear until I pulled the aftermarket deck from the PO.


It appears that the PO rewired all 4 speakers, but reading the thread seems to suggest only the fronts need to be wired. If I'm not mistaken only the ones with a fader needed this? Also I can't not find the wire to attach the illumination to, maybe I need to look further into the dash.


Towards the rear seat it seems like the wires were wired up to be repurposed. It seems looks to be done the opposite of this diagram.



I'm not sure why the front speaker wires are connected to the rear speaker wires.

Everything worked fine except for one of the rear speaker, but I can't remember which one. When I pulled the deck out a couple of the speakers wire came undone, so I couldn't tell if it was undone to begin with or if it came loose during removal.

My question is what would be the easiest method to to hook up my new deck and power up the speakers and a sub?


I was hoping I could just use the method above as shown in the killer $500 stereo thread. Is this still possible? I want to understand whats going on in my current wiring situation before I proceed.

Thanks
Ivan

[tk32]

Welp, fixed it after I got my hands on a multimeter. Turns out Red/Grey is constant power on my vehicle. Red/Green is light switch related. Now its written down somewhere for future reference. :up:

tk

[tk32]

Hello

For sure an electrical noob here, I read a lot of this thread but not all of it.... My car is a 1988 325ix with premium sound

Anyway I just installed a Pioneer X560BT (for the record it looks pretty damn good, simplicity and color match wise, no pics yet) to an empty hole that the previous owner hacked at some point.

One fun issue I would like to resolve:

The radio only works while the light switch is on (parking or driving). Lights off, radio off. help?

I have aftermarket 12v yellow hooked to red/green (there are 2?) both are hooked in at this point. And aftermarket 12ACC Red is hooked to Violet/Grey, no violet/white in my mess.

Red/Grey is the only wire not hooked to anything at this point, as my radio has an internal dimmer, not related to the car, so I am petty sure this is not affecting anything.

Also I have a blue from the dash that I connected to grey in the aftermarket head. (found that advise elsewhere....)

Followed the first post on this thread for all remaining wires, and am hoping its a simple solution, comments?

Thanks :drink:

[red2.4srt]

Followed this to a T last night and it works flawlessly, thanks for providing such a detailed writeup for a newbie! Thanks Luke!

Todd

[StereoInstaller1]

Thanks so much guys... It's so much work for my crazy old ass to type all that stuff out, I am really happy this has been so useful for so many.

Thanks!
Luke

[nash89_325i]

Luke - great post and thread! I read, and re-read... and read a bit more. Then I got 'er done. Mine is a very simple case, '89 325i with stock HU, no amp, no premium sound, no fader. Everything I needed to do was readily accessible through the radio slot, I didn't have to open up anything else.

It's all about finding the twisted pairs. I had to unwrap about 8 inches of factory tape... my setup worked just like this post led me to expect apart from the exact color scheme of the pairs. Mine are:

Yellow/Red - LF(+)
Yellow/Brown - LF(-)

Blue/Red - RF(+)
Blue/Brown - RF(-)

Blue/Black - RR(+)
Blue/Brown - RR(-)

Yellow/Black - LR(+)
Yellow/Brown - LR(-)

I did the battery test to verify the pattern, but the schema was pretty apparent based on which pair ran to the right front (all the others run toward the driver's side)

Power connections were exactly as you described, only other wrinkle was that the antenna - white wire that bundles with the antenna lead - is driven by the blue/white wire in my aftermarket unit rather than blue.

Hey - thanks for your help!

Also, I just went with a very basic Kenwood KDC152 - so even after buying some tools I'm in this for way, way less than a C-note!! I liked the "vintage" aspect of the original radio but the volume knob was static-central and had to be jiggled to get any sound at all. Thought maybe speakers were bad but they all work and sound pretty good - and the stock wire is excellent as you said.

[fuzzysux]

vert premium radio

hey Luke,
thank you very much for posting the wire colors and info on amp etc.. i have just finished a complete reworking of my factory premium system with fader on an 88 vert. figured i'd provide some small insight for others and perhaps you can add this info where appropriate in the first few pages (since it can be very hard to find in the 30 page thread).

factory fader - as you said.. does not have enough wires inputs.. my car came with a horribly installed kenwood using only 2 channels which were split then amped.. it sounded aweful!. there is no reason for this fader.. if you are replacing your radio with aftermarket, the radio will have this feature.
64111368498 this is the part # for the appropriate plug to fill in the hole after you throw your fader directly in the garbage.

BEYOND FADER WIRING - Premium stereo - early car.
the factory harness here is pretty long, so you can cut out the fader (all corresponding wires to/from).
on the premium stereo for early cars, you will now be left with only found 4 input wires, yellow/red yellow/black blue/red blue/black and two brown/black. this means there is an amplifier. in the convertible, it is not near the antenna - it is on the back wall on the left.
-pull out trunk felt after removing the 8 or so small black clips
-unplug harness
-clip 2 or 3 wire ties and the end of this harness should not be at about your spare tire making it much easier to work on than climbing into your trunk.

now, for those who might be confused about using the stock wiring to run your rear speakers:

i connected my deck as follows for rear output:
yellow/red wire for left rear positive
yellow/black wire for left rear negative
blue/red wire for right rear positive
blue/black wire for left rear negative

for this to work, you have to then go to the trunk and cut the yellow/red yellow/black blue/red blue/black wires out of the harness plug. i left about 2" on the plug side just in case i ever wanted to use it again.. also cut and strip the black/red black/purple black/white and black/brown wires at the same distance.
now, i connected with simple butt connectors as follows:
yellow/red to black/red
yellow/black to black/purple
blue/red to black/white
blue/black to black/brown

now the rear speakers work! as you mentioned, it is a very short run to the front speakers, so find yourself 3-4 ft of wire and a metal coat hanger. after removing the kick panel, you will find the mid driver - for the sake i was being sure to connect to the right side of these wires, i removed the speaker from the kick pannel.
if you have tweeters, you will immediately notice that there are 3 wires here. + and - running to the speaker and then one wire running from the + side of the driver to the tweeter. since the tweeter and the driver are run in parallel with a "passive crossover" or capacitor, you will also need to run your speaker - from deck to the - of the mid driver AND the tweeter. on my drivers side, the tweeter - was buried in the harnesses where on the passenger side it was much easier to find.
I attached my front front output of my deck as follows:
deck front left output + to Grey/red
deck front left output - to Grey/purple
don't forget your tweeters - you will see a grey/green wire attached to the driver + (don't touch that). now find the grey/yellow wire (that is the tweeter -) and attach that with a splice connector or simply combine grey/purple with grey/yellow in one end of the butt connector (sorry for the over explenation - trying to appeal to all levels of installers).

as soon as you connect this, you will hear both the tweeter and the driver working.

right side is similar:
right deck output + to Grey/white (at the speaker)
right deck output - to Grey/brown (at the speaker)
right tweeters are the same color wires as left (grey/green + still connected to right speaker and grey/yellow somewhere either behind the speaker or in the close harness. connect as left side.


i don't mean to clog up your stuff Luke, i hope you can find some useful information here. this was my first time coming across this stereo configuration in 5 e30's so i assume it isn't very common and i also noticed that this configuration had the least direct information available.

as far as quality, i'm running an alpine iva d-106 and i think that with some high pass filters from the deck set at 80hz, i am impressed with the factory speakers. i will likely now just add 1 or 2 10" subs and leave it be. the factory speakers so far - seem powerful enough for such a small cabin.

[Bullhead]

Bro I can't find an amp for sheite, and my car just has 4 speakers and no tweeters.

[StereoInstaller1]

I found the fader, but it only has 6 wires coming from it. So I guess I have to run new speaker wires IIRC the other stuff. Oh well.

So that means you have an early car and that you didn't read the whole thread... Can't say I blame you, it's HUGE.

Here's the basics: either run new wire to the fronts or run 2 pair to the amp.

Either way, you can use the 4 existing wires to run the rear speakers, so those are already at the stock amp plug.

Good luck, if you get stuck let me know.

Go kick it's ass!

Luke

[Bullhead]

I found the fader, but it only has 6 wires coming from it. So I guess I have to run new speaker wires IIRC the other stuff. Oh well.