Radio hook up

If you follow my advice--which is based on my mistakes--you can avoid ending up like I did, frustrated, sweaty, out of speaker wire and almost.
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Identify and connect loose wiring. If you are not using a wiring harness clip adaptor, you will need to identify the wires coming out of the stereo, as well as those coming out of the car. Use the repair manual for your car or locate a wiring diagram for your car online to aid in your efforts to identify each wire. Most car stereos will require the following connections: The ground wire for the stereo will be black, as will its corresponding wire from the car. If there is no ground wire, you can secure the ground cable to bare metal in the body of the car to serve as a ground.

The 12 volt constant power wire is usually yellow or blue, though it may be a number of colors coming from the car. The rest of the harness wires are for the speakers. Use the diagrams to properly match each with its appropriate wire from the car. The antenna wire is much thicker with a metal head and can be connected separately before you install the stereo. Connect the output convertor if necessary. Some vehicles will require an output converter to make it work properly with components of the car that are not common industry wide.

Be sure you order an output converter designed specifically for your year, make and model vehicle. Secure all connected wires. Once all of the wiring has been connected to their corresponding wires, you will need to make those connections permanent. There are a number of ways you can permanently bond two wires together and while some may be more resilient than others, most will work just fine for car stereo applications. Be sure there is no bare wire metal showing from any of the wire connections by wrapping them in electric tape or heat-shrink wrap. You melt the solder onto the wires to stick them together and as the solder cools it forms a permanent bond.

Twisting wires together and then covering them with heat-shrink wrap or electric tape will suffice for car stereos. Connectors can be purchased that you simply slide both wires into and either crimp them together with pliers or twist them together with your fingers. Once you locate the battery, use a hand or socket wrench to loosen the black cable from the negative terminal on the battery.

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You will not need to remove the bolt entirely, instead simply loosen it enough to pull the cable off of the terminal. To be sure the battery is disconnected, check to see if the lights come on in the cabin of the car. Nothing electronic should work with the battery disconnected.

Disconnecting the battery will prevent you from doing damage to the electrical system as well as protect you from shocks. Remove any necessary pieces of trim. You will need to gain access to the sides of the stock head unit or stereo in your center console. In some cars, that will require the removal of some pieces of plastic trim.

Be careful when removing trim pieces, as they may be brittle and subject to cracking. Whenever possible, try to pull the piece of trim out slightly to get a look at what kind of clip is used to attach it. You may need to slide the trim piece in a certain direction to separate it, you may need to hit a release with a screw driver, or you may need to simply pull on it hard enough. Checking first will prevent you from breaking off the clips and having to replace the piece of trim. Determine how your head unit is mounted.

Car stereos are all held in place using one of two methods: If you're using wiring harnesses, this connection will be made when you connect the harness pieces. If you aren't using a wiring harness, you'll need to locate the bolt, wire, or screw that connects with the car's bare metal chassis.

Loosen the bolt, wire, or screw and slip the stereo's ground wire usually black underneath, then tighten. Note that the ground connection is important to the optimal performance of the stereo. If the ground wire doesn't connect to the bare metal, it won't work.

SXHH - HOOKUP - Radio Parts - Electronics & Components

And if the ground wire connection is loose, it could result in poor audio output. Sand down the area with sand paper to ensure a good connection. Connect the remaining wires. Plug in the antenna cable and connect the stereo's wiring adapter to the the car's wire harness. Connect the output converter if one is needed to make the new stereo compatible with the car's audio system. Have in mind that all wires should be connected in the end and there should no single one hanging unattended.

Test the fade and balance settings to be sure the speakers are working properly. Turn the power back off.

Push the stereo into place. When the stereo is fully in, you should hear it click into place. Fasten in any screws that are needed to hold the stereo in place, reconnect any wired components, and replace any knobs or drawers that were removed. Snap all the pieces of trim back into place over the stereo. Double check that all screws and trim pieces are securely in place.

Try out the new stereo. Turn the car power on again and play around with the stereo and its settings to be sure everything is in working order. How do I replace a Jeep radio with a Pioneer radio by matching the wires manually? It should be red to green, orange to purple, maroon to turquoise, pink to silver, and clear to black. Not Helpful 0 Helpful How do I connect the stereo to the equalizer if the stereo has no input port? You have to buy an adapter cable.

How to hook up any vehicle radio deck : With no harness

If you buy from a store like Radio Shack, you may be able to get the salesman to come outside and help you install it Not Helpful 0 Helpful 5. If I have an aftermarket Pioneer radio, and want to replace it with another Pioneer radio, do I need a new wiring harness? Not necessarily, just compare the harnesses and once they match, you can go ahead. Not Helpful 2 Helpful Not Helpful 6 Helpful 9.

What do I do if the stereo won't work after I disconnected it and put it back together? Make sure you have 12 volts to hot wire and a good ground. Some head units have a separate wire that must go to voltage for the display separately. Not Helpful 1 Helpful 3. Some people consider them the same. However, I would say that a booster is a 'go between' only to increase the power input to a subwoofer or set of subwoofers , whereas an amplifier is to increase the power to all channels.

Not Helpful 0 Helpful 1. I have a second hand Peugeot with a hole in the dashboard where a radio used to be.

Is it a simple case of plugging in some connectors to a new radio unit? This will work only if you replace with a stereo with same connectors.

Take a picture of how the stereo is wired. Unplug the stereo connections. First unplug the antenna wire, which will typically be a thicker wire plugged in separately from the rest.


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Next unplug the each of the wire harness connectors. There will typically be several of these and you can recognize them because a series of wires will feed into each one. The plastic piece into which the wires are fed should have either a tab or a button you can push, which will release the harness.

Match up the wires.