Reversing a hackjob - RMT 200 DIY - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

[CurrusDei]

Nice. Mine's coming apart this winter. Want to keep it driveable for the summer

[BlackSpeed66]

Awesome. I've ordered the harness already and ecs has good prices on tesa tape. It looks like the harness only plugs in to the bottom two receptacles on the deck. Is the larger top one just left empty or is it for VW specific use?

The set of connectors on top are for "options" depending on the stereo. Initially I was hopeful with the RMT200 as one of the connectors looked to be wired up for a set of pre-amp outs, which would have been fantastic. Unfortunately, as I found out - the connector is there but the internals do not appear to be hooked up, so that's a no-go. The center connector with 8 pins will be brown and that will be for your speakers. The bottom connector will be black and that will be for your power, ground, antenna, etc. The RMT200 also appears to have some sort of "SAFE" feature built in that I had to figure out by trial and error. I think it has something to do with the factory anti-theft on the newer VAG products which doesn't apply in this case if one is performing a retro-fit. You'll have to connect a small "jumper" on two of the power wires to bypass it. PM me if you get to this point and I can get a pic for you to show what I did...

[StereoInstaller1]

and I can help you make the remote wire work properly too, its 5V so you have to use a small relay or reed switch to get 12V to run your antenna or amp turn on.

[Nick_S]

Reminds me of mine when I first got it. The speaker wires were just run to whatever wire on the harness they felt like. Nasty twists with electrical tape and some without. Took me a while to sort it all out.

[CurrusDei]

So my RMT 200 is sitting in my office but I'm on vacation so i cant get to it until next week.

In the mean time, here is a color key for the Metra 71-1784 harness i have, and a listing of the wire colors coming out of my dash. I have tried my best to gather the necessary information from threads on this forum (from Luke, Geno, etc) to match up the two, but would appreciate if the experts here could confirm or correct my diagram below.

Also Luke I saw you posted the Metra flush mount frame. Going to order one of those. Geno, did you have a specific set of ABS rectangles that you used to sink the flush mount further behind the faceplate? Any pictures of the fabrication process you did? If not I'll take some.

EDIT*Removed wiring diagram, was incorrect

[CurrusDei]

Post holiday bump! What do you guys think?


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[CurrusDei]

Reversing a hackjob - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

Spent some time with the ETM tonight. A few observations.

I don't think my car had a fader. There isn't one in the dash, so unless the previous owner took the trouble to remove it AND source a cover for the dash opening there never was one. based on his other work on the car he would have just left the fader in or electrical taped over the opening.

My car being an M3 doesn't have a power raise antenna. Does this mean I will have one less white wire? I can only see one.

It looks like the two YL/BR and two BL/BR wires go to the case ground (assuming mine follows the early production model. However, I also have two Brown wires that go nowhere AND we're being used as the case ground on the old radio. So I guess I'm still confused here. Do I need to strip back further on the harness to look for the orange and brown wires? I feel like the harness is already stripped back pretty far.




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[StereoInstaller1]

How about a pic of the harness?

What year is it again?

[CurrusDei]

1989, June build date. Here are the pics I have on me. If you need a different angle let me know and I'll take it tonight




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[StereoInstaller1]

OK, first, I am pretty sure your car had a fader. That black plug in this pic is the fader:



So, your install is simple from here, all you need to do is follow the bypass guide.

The speaker wires are all there, this is a 20 minute job.

[jhaurimn]

What he said ^

Also, yes, you should only have one white wire for the antenna power.

Let me know if you need a fader switch, I got a spare one.

[CurrusDei]

Thanks. There's no way i would have figured that out.

I'm sure its a 20 min job for someone who knows what they're doing (i.e., not me). The first time I did a wheel bearing job on my e30 it took me three weeks working in my spare time and gathering the right tools. The other side took me 3 hours. So, experience definitely plays a role here.

If you could answer a couple questions that i have after reading the bypass thread I think I'll have this to where i can install and then troubleshoot anything from there.

- Based on what I have read, i WILL have the Orange/Brown wires if i unwrap further back on the harness that the fader wires are going into, correct?

- Where do the yellow/brown and blue/brown wires go if they are not the speaker grounds?

- Am i still missing a second white wire or do i not have one because my antenna is fixed on the roof?

Thanks Luke!

[CurrusDei]

Reversing a hackjob - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

What he said ^



Also, yes, you should only have one white wire for the antenna power.



Let me know if you need a fader switch, I got a spare one.

Thanks, you posted while I was writing my response above. Am i correct in assuming I can just bypass the fader by cutting off the black connector and connecting the wires directly into the harness?

And to keep the thread interesting, pics!

[StereoInstaller1]

the bypass thread says you will find EITHER blue/brown and yellow/brown OR brown/orange...gddammit I wish I could just get your fuckers to call me, this is all so gatdamn easy for me to explain verbally, but I am an old fuck, so typing sucks ass!

[CurrusDei]

HAH! OK I think I'm good now. I went on your website and found your phone number. I will call you if I manage to screw this up.