I just picked up a Sony CD player at a local pawn shop, I'm sick of running the discman/cassete adapter to play CDs.
Went to Best Buy and asked for a wiring harness, they said the only one that might work is the 1986+ harness for Mazdas, so I got one.
Pulled the stock stereo system out and holy crap, I'm confused! Then I did a whole bunch of searches in the forum, so I kinda know what I need to do, but still confused.
Obviously, the wiring harness I picked up is useless. I read that for a CD player install, I would need to bypass the amp and go straight to the speakers.... so does this imply that there's no hope in finding a direct plug-in harness??
Does anyone have or know where to find a comprehensive write-up on how to do this wiring on a GSL SE?
I thought if anything, I'll grab a multi meter with some long-*** leads and locate the hot, ground, and speakers, re-wire everything and leave the stock wires hanging in case I want to use them in the future. I've never dealt with wiring before, though, where will the new wires neet to run through? Do I need to tear apart the carpet or something? Lastly, can I still keep the joystick fader if I'm bypassing the amps?
thanks,
rio

 

Power wiring from that 1986 harness should work.

Does the new Headunit have RCA outs? If so, then you can keep the Joystick fader, but the stock amps put out only 25 watts... POS IMHO...

Remove your storage bins and you should find the stock amps. IIRC There should be a 4 pin connector for each. These are the for the front and rear speakers. (Rear speakers should be a blue one.) Use the speaker wiring from the harness to connect to those, extend the wiring to the front and it should work...

Previous owner had a mess of wiring in my car, old stereo harness cut off and just bare ends... If you really can't use that harness, get back and I'll be able to help you find what wire is which.

 

i wen through all this about 2 weeks ago. there is a place to buy the wiring harness...ask rx7carl i think he was the one that posted the link. i final gave up and yanked the fuse box down...and put a wire in the area thats under "acc" then ran it to my cd player.. i used the ground for the ashtray light cuz i had already riped it out...but you can just ground it to the frame somewhere...then make sure u got extra fuse (15a iirc) and cut ur stock wires and start touching each tot he frame...the one that sparks and blows a fuse is ur constant....wire it up. then go backa nd forth and wire ur speakers by using the "guess and check method".

mine is REALLLY ghetto and ill post you a pic of my "system" in a few minutes

 

thats my pimp system...along with my TWO speakers.

 

i got my wiring harness from www.sounddomain.com ... i did have to switch the wires around in the plug but the plug did fit perfect...

here's a pic of it...i only used the green plug...the other 2 are for the speakers...

 

man buy a multimeter, I got mine for free and it will save all the time and hassle of blowin fuses, I had the same problem, you WILL have to pull out the carpet if you decide to rewire it, thats next on my agenda too, also ditch the stock amps man, if you be really strapped for cash then get a Rampage, that way you wont feel bad throwing it away in a couple of months to get a good one check and see, but something tells me that a sony from a pawn shop is at least going to be 45 watts per channnel, that is louder than the stock amps and plenty loud for a while, especially if you still ahve stock speakers,

 

Good lord... haven't you ever heard of a test light or multimeter?

 

or a "wiring diagram, most recent stereos will still have a manufacturers wiring diagram on the internet for the speakers and pulling out the speakers to see what wire their connected to isnt hard, one thing you may want to chack, my Po had a sort of wire bridge in the left storage compartment for the rear speakers, if their is one take it out and make a real bridge with solder, and soldering iron, and some heatshrink tape, or rewire it either way is better than trying to connect two harnesses together with speaker wire and spare blades

 

iirc I used the harness from best buy for battery power and spliced into cig light for acc ran the ground to the body using a screw underneath the ashtray and used new speaker wire and new speakers as the old speakers (I was tempted to try and dig out all the old wire to save weight but resisted pulled the amps and put them in a box with all the other stereo parts incase I get a bug to restore her to factory one day) were trash the speaker wire will tuck away neatly under the carpet just pull the 3 screws out of the door trim and lift on the plastic clip that holds the carpet tuck in your wire then under the bins in the back and your set the kick panels and dead ped have to come out too its no big deal go with new speakers and dich the amps any modern head unit and semi decent speakers will kick the stock systems butt it may have been mack in 1985 but come on its been 20 years would be cool to still use the fader joystick

 

Great, thanks for all the help. I'll pick up the harness from www.sounddomain.com and get it done next week.

So, does anyone have or know where to find the wiring diagram for the GSL SE?

 

http://www.wankel.net/~krwright/cars/cars.html

 

I've been slacking on this, but I just received the harness in the mail. 2 more questions:

1) What's the difference between using a metal ground and using the negative battery terminal? I found that one of the power wires for the stereo shows connectivity with the negative battery terminal only when the key is in 'acc', which would be ideal... should I not use this as my ground for some reason? If not, how can I have the stereo work conditionally upon 'acc'?

2) I'm gonna run wire from the back of the receiver to the storage bins in order to connect to the speaker wires. What's a good path to run these wires through? I was thinking out from the sides of the stereo panel and under the carpet along inner side of both seats.

Thanks

 

when i ordered my harness from sounddomain.com they sent me a harness that needed the wires switched around...make sure you match the right wires to the back of your head unit...

 

Yeah I used a multimeter and noticed something like that. I wasn't too clear about it, though. I can't remember exactly what my doubt was with respect to that, but I wrote it down and it's at home so I'll post again this evening. Can anyone help me with the other 2 questions? (two posts above)

 

this will b my first install so im curious it says on soundomain.com that u need 3things 2 make a complete 'swap' if u will do u really need those 3 things or not really?