since the cars home and this is the first nice day since shes been home, i decided to poke around and clean the garage some.

it looks like a 12 year old re-wired the stereo. why they didnt bother to re-use the stock harness is beyond me. and to add insult to injury, the stereo doesnt even work... it turns on... antenna extends... and.... no sound... absolutely nothing. so now i have to try and take the radio surround off with out breaking it some more (yes its cracked a wee bit) and figure out what they did...

 

Yeah, I hate that ****. On my old FC, it looks like someone grabbed the radio harness and randomly slashed at it with a scalpel. Some people shouldn't be allowed to work on cars...

 

My intercooler was held in place by tie wraps...
I had a magic marker cap used to block off vacuum lines...

It only got worse after that.

 

man... there are wires all over the place... theres a set of wires that goes to the spare tire area... no clue what theyre for...

any tips for removing the stereo surround?

 

Im in the same position. Im doing body work and found my rear quater panel had a an inch and a half of bondo.

 

did they run their own wire for speakers? i had to run my own wires for the speakers and the new stereo. it'd be a lot better if i could use the stock harness, but i think the wires are all messed up due to a previous owner's horrible care for the car.

be VERY tender with it and unscrew the screws very very very slowly.

or somehow make your own repalcement bezel. i was going to attempt that, but i ended up "modding" my bezel. i cut it into 4 peices and held it on with zip ties. not too noticeable or the prettiest, but it gets the job done.

 

yeah, they ran all their own wires... but it looks like ****. i almost wonder if they removed a better stereo/speakers when i bought the car. well see how it goes this weekend once ive got some more time.

 

take the ash tray out and there are 2 screws at the bottom. i think there might be a couple screws at the very bottom by the shifter surround (take that off too, it just snaps out) then pop the ac vents out and there are 2 screws at the top.

 

thats why you buy cars from car enthusiasts at a premium and not people wanting to get rid of an old car for cheap lol. If some dude lists his FC for 5grand and talks like he knows whats up, thats a heck of a better deal than someone selling a similar FC for 3grand.

 

^very true, but sometimes an incredible deal is just too good to pass up. like 200 or so for a complete fc.

 

which is the reason i bought mine.

 

well... got the radio out... even more fail... looks like it was just thrown together.

the aftermath:




this is gonna be a blast installing a new stereo...


edit: i forgot... the upper screws on the radio surround were busted off. and the bracket was still attached to the dash. any ideas on how to re-attach the bracket? i was think i could use some epoxy and glue the bracket back onto the surround considering the screw holes on the surround were busted out.

 

dude when i gt mine you had to turn the radio on to crank the car

 

wtf?!

 

wow, not the worst ive ever seen.
see, im lucky in the fact that i work on cars all day everyday, and came from a car audio background, thanks to a previous owner of this car that im working on right now, i had to rewire about HALF the DASH HARNESS, most of the engine bay, de-blue everything (it was all ricer blue, everything, i HAVE NO CLUE why)
so, if i ever meet this kid (i know his name) im just gunna punch him in the face.

Lloyd

 

When I got my eclipse(I know its not a FC) I pulled the radio because reception sucked and I wanted to see if the antenna was plugged in. I found that someone had made a ball of solder covered in black tape adding their own preouts. I ended up rewiring the whole stereo system.

 

christ!


im surprised over the amount of wire that ive pulled out of the car already... there were rca and a remote cable that led to in between the bins... the connectors were both cut off there was a amp power cable that was under the car that led to the same area but was cut off under the car there were wires in the spare tire area that went nowhere and were taped together!

this is all found the left side of the car... i havent gone through the right side yet.

 

ya, oh, and thats only the dash and engine, im not even going to talk about the body harness, the MASSIVE amounts of oddly placed bondo, the primer, cut springs.
omfg, the things that i have fixed in such a short amount of time.

stick with it, AND FOR GODS SAKE, keep to the factory wiring schematic, and rewire the stereo plugs, youll never regret it. PROMISE

Lloyd

 

if i could re-use what i can for the stereo... power, antenna, illumination, ground... the stock speaker plugs are still there (in the picture) but on the speaker side of the wire, theyve been clipped... the plastic connectors are cut and missing and theres less than an inch of wire to work with. so im gonna have to run speaker wire (the correct way) to the 4 corners. shouldnt be too much trouble... wish i had the new stereo and speakers so i could get some tunes in the car...

 

This thread makes me happy that I have purchased three of my four GXLs with the factory stereo still fully intact...and one of the four with a very, very...almost scary clean stereo install. We're talking pro harness adapters...nothing cut at all. It was beautiful...

 

Try this S13 I just picked up...climate control doesn't work, no radio, but the wires are all cut and taped in random spots, the a/c doesn't work (found more cut wires), the smart guy used like lamp cord (yes like to a light) and ran it throughout the car to wire up the speakers hahaha and to top it all off none of the fuses are the right ratings...

 

From your pic, it looks like most of the OEM harness plugs are there...your best bet is to get a OEM stereo harness diagram and trace the wires....I just picked up a vert one OEM plug was there and other was severed..so had to play color match for about 45 minutes, luckily the previous owner re-did wiring and deleted the stock amp an ran seperate wires to each speaker

GL it's not as hard as it seems

 

for some reason he felt the need to rewire it so when he cranked the car the radio wouldn't cut out but made it so for the ignition switch to get power the radio had to be on.

 

My **** was hacked too.

I dont have pictures but lets just say the tip of the iceberg was the turn on wire sandwhiched in the fuse box....

I ripped the **** out and threw the deck on the floor after i saw what was behind it. Had never been so pissed off at an object before.......

 

i had a clean install =D