Am I supposed to have a premium headunit?

[Rockledge]

OK, I pulled out my headunit because my radio was sounding really lousy. I noticed that there was a wire/connector not plugged in to anything...and I can't find anywhere to plug it into, either. Can anyone tell my what wire it is that the arrow is pointing to in the picture?

The radio I pulled out was a basic (not analog) Ford radio/cassette deck ...is that even the right one? I get the feeling that the seller might have replaced the original unit with the current one.

P.S. I have the JBL speakers and the whole JBL amp assembly in the back of my car.

Thanks for any feedback!

<small>[ September 25, 2003, 01:22 PM: Message edited by: Rockledge ]</small>

 

[jelloslug]

You have the wrong headunit. The connector that has the arrow pointing to it goes to the amps. If you look in the hole to the left you will see another connector (or maybe even 2) that is not connected to anything. That is the bypass connector for the amps. If you get the correct headunit you will have to plug the black connector back into the connector on the left and use the smaller connector on the new radio. The gray connector is for the power and will plug into the correct headunit. If there are 2 unhooked connectors to the left hook both the gray and the black to the ones to the left and look around for another loose gray plug to hook to the correct headunit.

 

[Rockledge]

Thanks. No wonder it sounded lousy! I guess a trip to the bonyeard is in order...

The original "stock" radio must be pretty good for someone to want to keep it, huh?

 

[SinisterSHO]

I do have a stock head unit that I probably wont be needing since I installed a Pioneer. I do have the cd player, but it stopped working for whatever reason. All the lights were still on, but the actual display that showed the track and what not was blank. Let me know if you're interested.

 

[jelloslug]

Don't forget that if you put in a JBL tape deck that came from a car with the slave CD player installed you will either:

1) Need to get the jumper plug the goes into the 6 pin CD loop connector

or

2) Get the slave CD player (working or otherwise) and all the wiring to hook it up (the 6 pin communication cable AND the 6 pin power cable, neither are there if you car did not come with a factory slave CD player) .

the radio/tape deck part will not function without either one or the other.

 

[SinisterSHO]

Thats right, while we were installing my pioneer, we had to run to get a harness and without the cd player plugged into the deck, it wouldn't play anything.

 

[Rockledge]

I called around a few junkyards today and even dropped in on two. Nobody had anything that I would consider putting back into the car...I'm beginning to lean toward saving up a little and then going with an aftermarket unit...I realize I probably won't be able to use the JBL amp system if I go aftermarket (right?), but those are the breaks, I guess. I also like the idea of playing MP3s and the other things that newer technology can offer. Any thoughts on that?

 

[RoadWarrior]

Nah, just get an amp integration harness I've been doing it since I bought the car on my 90. There's 2 versions, one that uses the speaker outputs for the deck, the others hook into the RCA outs for it.

RW

 

[Rockledge]

RoadWarrior:
Nah, just get an amp integration harness I've been doing it since I bought the car on my 90. There's 2 versions, one that uses the speaker outputs for the deck, the others hook into the RCA outs for it.

RW

What is an amp integration harness? Does that allow me to attach an aftermarket unit to the factory amps?

What are the differences between the two versions?

 

[30footSHO]

What part # is the RCA integration harness? Mine uses the speaker output version, and I was wondering for future reference. Where can it be found, as well?

Dave