Need some advice installing a new deck

[WlknGenius]

When I bought my e30 it didn't have a deck in it. The PO had some subs and a decent alpine deck. So I have a few questions as a result. Can you audio guys tell from the photo attached to what degree the wiring has been altered? you can see two gray wires, an orange wire, and a green wire that have been cut right by that 18 pin connector. There are only 12 actual contacts in it, and it looks like there may be 1 or two wires with contacts that I could fit into it. A couple of the connectors that attach to the original deck are still intact. I looked at the original deck and some of the connectors are still in the deck with the wires cut right off the back.

Most of those wires were bound by electrical tape, but I undid the tape to see what was going on.

I bought a used Clarion dxz745mp from a guy on bimmerforums. He said he only needed an adapter from best buy to put it into in his e36. It appears I'm not going to get away so easily.

What do I need to do to get my clarion deck in? Can I work with what I have? I've heard a lot of people say that they should rewire their speakers and what not. I'd like to get this deck in myself. I have minimal audio knowledge, but I've wired things before.

Thanks.

[kylebes1]

Wiring it without the adapter is not difficult. You may be able to restore the e30 plug...

You need to do a little cleaning, though. Remove all the none factory wires so you can see what you have remaining, then post up a better picture.

[StereoInstaller1]

ACK! What a mess. What you have there is an install where all 4 speakers were running off of an amp or two. You can tell that by the fact that the speaker wires on that retarded Circuit City adapter were cut.

If you simply dive into this thing, remove all of the crap wire and such, run new speaker wire to all 4 corners and connect the basics of ground, +12V (acc) +12V constant (memory) and power antenna, you should be done in about 2 hours, total.

A shortcut I use sometimes on E30's is to catch the rear speaker wires behind the left front speaker, in a 4 wire harness. 2 yellow and 2 bue, both with stripes. Then you run the 3 from the left and one to the right...all done. Premuim is a bit more confusing due to the crossover for the tweeter being in the midrange speaker, but it is still the same wire locations.

GL!
Luke

[WlknGenius]

Wiring it without the adapter is not difficult. You may be able to restore the e30 plug...

You need to do a little cleaning, though. Remove all the none factory wires so you can see what you have remaining, then post up a better picture.

How do I discern factory and non-factory? What are you saying when you refer to the e30 plug?