Aftermarket CD player, hard to install?
 

I'm planning on getting a CD player for my Japan-imported 1985FC, and decided to turnning it into a little fun project for myself - instead of sending the car to a garage, I'm hoping that I can install it myself. How hard do you guys think it is going to be to pull out the existing radio/tape player and put in a basic SONY cd player? I've also read from somewhere saying there might be a problem with the factory speaker in the car - would they be too old for a new cd player? I don't want to put too much money in so install an AMPer is not an option - I could potentially replace the speakers though. I would have to abandon my plan if you guys think it's difficult!

PS: thank you guys so much for helping me figuring out how to disable the 110KPH warning buzzing. You are the best!

CD Players are pretty basic as long as your not color blind and you do it right lol.

1)Buy the adapter plugs if you can find them they plug into the stock witing with out any cutting. Then before you plug them in to the car wiring wire them up to the CD player wiring harness. All you have to do for that is read and do some color matching. If you do go this route heat shrink and solder the connections between


2)If you cant find them read through the FSM and write down what each color means on the stock wiring. Then cut the stock plugs off as close to the plug as possible from here you just strip the wires and match them to the CD player wiring harness.

Of course #1 will be the easiest. I wouldn't say its hard as long as you know what wire goes where. Just don't do it in a hurry and you will be fine. I would also replace the speakers just to be sure they are working 100% for a longer time. If you do this then run good 16 gauge speaker wire from the speakers to the CD player wiring harness. This will give you much crisper, clearer sound quality. It also saves you from having to attempt to jump the stock amps.

its an easy 1 hour project

At best, you go to Best Buy or Circuit City and buy the wiring harness from the CD player to your car's harness for $20, and the installation takes less time than you can drink a beer in.

At worst, you have to sotter the wires on your own. Even that's not bad, and shouldn't take more than an hour, maybe two hours if it's your first time doing sottering.

As long as you have the separate plugs out of the car it should be quite easy to solder them together as long as you have good electronics solder and a decent soldering iron or soldering gun. Both can be had at Radio Shack for less than $20 and it will be well worth it in the long run because you wont have to worry about wires coming loose and possibly shorting out and having to redo it or even end up toasting your Cd player.

this, of course, assuming you're soldering, not sottering. Sottering takes a lot longer than 2 hours to do.
:)

Thanks guys! Sounds like a very good project for X'mas break! I may just try to take the existing tape player out and see if there's anything that I can not handle - or maybe take a picture and post it here for some more detailed advice before commencing the work.

PS: I think there are a total of four speakers in my car, two in the doors and two in front of the boot. Do you guys know how to get to the wires connecting them from the CD player? Is it hard to get to?

If you need help, pm me.

I used to work at Best Buy and I have done it too many times now haha.

HELP!

Again, I've to put my hand up to thank our Japanese friend - they've either done an excellent job or they should shoot thermselves in their head! This (refer to the attached picture) is what the back of my existing radio/tape player looks like - I can't say it's crap because every connection has been done and protected beatifully, but I feel this guy in the past has liturally made matter 100 times more complicated than what it should have been!

As a result of that, I need you guys' help to identify the wires - I guess I can igonre all the complicated connections and focus on the wires at the back of the existing radio/tape player. I'll make a diagram and upload it here for you to look at later!

thats not as hard as it looks. seems to me they used the adapter plugs i was talking about earlier but i cant verify this because my car never had plugs since i bought it.

here is a link to the FAQ. Look at post number 3. It tells you all the specs you need for the wiring and the speaker sizes.

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...72#post5131072

NOW! Existing time has come! Until I've done this wiring diagram, I've realised it is not some complicated after all, like jfpimp91elkland has just said. However, I still need your help to identify at least the critical wires.

What I have done is draw out all the wires (in colour) and connections that I can find. Fortunately the stock radio is still there though not connected. I've identified all the plugs that go in to the stock radio and foud that most of them are not used. Can anyone please have a look and give me some feedback on this!

You can find a better quality image here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/165h2a (the file is around 4m).

If i remeber correctly those plugs(pic 6) arent used in my car either they are zip tied and put to the side. Im not sure of what they go to either as i didnt install my CD player it was in when i bought it. Wish i could help more but im all out of answers until i find my book of answers.

Just found the book. It says the answer is in you back yard. Just kidding. Best answer is can give is let someone chime in. Im much better with this stuff when I'm there and doing it. When i did the one in my old Firebird I started with no wiring diagram and about 20 cut wires. 2 hours later and one sheet of paper later i had a working cd player.

I honestly don't believe in Plug in Harnesses.The adapter kind,as ome of them Do not work.
Myself,I just wired up the Aftermarket deck as if the car had No wires at all.I ran wires to each of the speakers,and Disconnected them and Connected the New Run of wire to each of them.I hid the Rear Wires under the Plastic Rocker panel Covers and the Carpet...The Old stock harness for the Radio/Deck/EQ was not hacked at all.
I did this in case I wanted to turn the car back to stock,or If I sold the car.they aren't getting the Sound system too!.It is bad enough that the Car if sold,would not get me the Price invested.
Anyways,If you Consider my Method,of course the Wiring diagram for the Install is usually On the deck itself,or you can get it on the Maker's website.
Cheers,and good luck.STYX.

That's a very good point! However I don't want to do that untill I've decided to replace all four speakers. At the moment the existing aftermarket radio/tape players is in good working condition, therefore I feel I can trust whoever did this job in the past. So all I need to do is to identify the wires that come out of the back of the aftermarket radio, which confuses me:

I guess (please correct me) the blue and red/blue wires are power lines, and the orange is ground (as it is connected to a device that is very similar to what Icemark has described as a "relay" in the FAQ). Then it leaves me 3 white wires and 3 grey wires, which I assume are for the speakers. HOW can there be 4 speakers and only 6 wires?

I did previously suggest the independent speaker wiring because the OEM wiring is just that OEM and 23 years old in this case. Also in this case the stock plugs have been cut so the rest of your suggestion isn't very useful to the OP. Your suggestions would have been great if they hadn't been cut. My suggestion if the car is going to be getting one of the nicer Sony head units i would suggest keeping the one in there now and the harness for it just in case you do sell the car at some point. As for me by the time i sell my car the Cd players will be replaced by SD cards and other things of the sort as they are slowly becoming converted now.

Actually all plugs that go into the stock radio are still there (please see the wiring diagram in my previous post), that's why I feel I can trust this guy's work. I mean I need to identify the wires that goes into the stock radio (a few of them do not match the colour descriptions in the FAQ), or the wires that goes into the aftermarket tape player.

PS. all the wires and connectors are in very good conditions - I think.

[/QUOTE]Then it leaves me 3 white wires and 3 grey wires, which I assume are for the speakers. HOW can there be 4 speakers and only 6 wires?[/QUOTE]

I almost want to say two speakers are run from one wire which is is not good. Also if you are going to up the speakers then definitely get an amp for them. You dont need anything huge or expensive. A cheap one from ebay will work just needs to be 4 channel. The way you want to base you wattage is take add up the RMS wattage of each speaker and then subtract 40 watts(4 speaker from your total. This keeps them from blowing. The head unit will under power them also causing them to blow. My current setup is loud, clear, and crisp. The speakers were "going out of business" sale items and are 140 watt peaks in the doors and 100 watt peaks in the rear. So i have a 400 watt amp which some consider over kill because it is ungodly loud when cranked. All was had for under $165. Even some of the cheaper ebay speakers are great. Don't overpay for speakers and you and your wallet will be happen even if you do blow them.

I cant tell from everyones pictures or drawings, but this is pretty simple if you have not already figured it out.

Factory wire color/description/aftermarket radio wire

LTBlue/Red= 12v+ Hook to the Yellow of the aftermarket radio
LtBlue/White= +Accessory Hook to the red or the aftermarket radio
LtBlue/Yellow= -power ant trigger Hook this to the blue of the aftermarket radio through a relay that triggers ground
Red/Black=+ Lumination Hook this to the Orange/White of the aftermarket radio (if equipped)
White=Factory Amp Turn on Hook this to the blue/white of the aftermarket radio

NoteL some aftermarket radios do not have seperate radio ant trigger and amp trigger, and will have only a blue or a blue/white, not both. On these aftermarket radios, you will "Y" off the wire to the aftermarket power antenna relay and the amp turn on lead.

Ground (earth) to the body, use the 10mm bolt behind the center console front drivers access panel. Do not use the Red/Black as ground it will damage the interior light circuit and dimmer in the car. Most aftermarket radios use black for this ground/earth wire.

Front Speakers (maximum of a 15 watt peak from the radio):
LtGreen/Red= Left Hook to the white of the aftermarket radio
LtGreen/Black= Left Hook to the white/black of the aftermarket radio

LtGreen= Right Hook to the grey of the aftermarket radio
LtGreen/Yellow=Right Hook to the grey/black of the aftermarket radio

Rear Speakers (if applicable, if you have the amplified rear speakers again the Maximum of 15 watts peak is all the stock speaker amp input can handle):
Brown= Left rear Hook to the green of the aftermarket radio
Brown/White= Left Rear Hook to the green/black of the aftermarket radio

LtBlue= Right Rear Hook to the violet of the aftermarket radio
LtBlue/Orange=Right Rear Hook to the violet/black of the aftermarket radio

Now some cheaper radios will not have dedicated rear colors or even rear speaker wires. On these you will need to with use a aftermarket amp or "Y" off the appropriate front wires.

as mentioned above the power antenna's trigger is ground/earth (or - ). With all aftermarket radio's antenna output as 12 volts positive (+). To make a stock power antenna work you need a relay wired like this:

https://www.rx7club.com/attachment.p...6&d=1185708491

As far as foctory amps, if you head unit puts out more than 7-15 watts RMS, then you will need to bypass the factory amps at the speaker

I've opened up both front speakers and found some interesting things - it looks like the previous person that connected the existing aftermarket radio has already by-passed the amp for the two front speakers (located behind the left speaker) underneath the glove box. So one of the grey and grey/blue wires are for the left speaker (passenger side). The driver side speaker uses stock (?) wires which are blue with white and brown strips. I'll open up the speakers in the back and have a look later.

There are two blue wires coming out of my new SONY head unit and the marker says "AMP REM MAX 0.3A". Anyone know what these are for?

Those are for Amp remote. This is what turns on your amp when you have one. That doesnt get connected to anything just yet. When and if you decide to run an amp then you will have to pull the cd player and run the rca cables and the remote wire to the cd player. You will also have to run a power wire from the battery and a ground to somewhere close to the amp. All is included in an amp wiring kit with directions.

Whatever you do, run new speaker wire, the stock stuff WILL NOT support anything, i tried, trust me, i ran Monster wire and never looked back.

[QUOTE=MmSadda;8779767]At best, you go to Best Buy or Circuit City and buy the wiring harness from the CD player to your car's harness for $20, and the installation takes less time than you can drink a beer in.

i dunno how fast you drink beer but i could have a few down while installing a cd player. but then it probably wouldnt get done.

as for the op like stated buy a harness made for your car and it should plug into the existing plugs. looks like they are still there. then the colors from the harness will match the wires off the cd player itself. if you dont have the plugs. Start guessin.

[QUOTE=cambam3486;8784371]From where I am, christchurch new zealand, I can not find any shop that will supply pre-90 harness for a mazda. I guess I'm on my own! :icon_no2:

Well, the worst case scenario I will have a burned CD player and four blown speakers. Or I'll have to go to a garage and pay to get it fixed up. Either way, I've learned hips already!