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Wiring in a car stereo

Seth

07:41 / 22.04.05

I've had a 1994 Ford Escort van for a couple of months now. It's fab, it drives pretty well and it got me to Birmingham and back on about half a tank (yay diesel!) and it fits all the necessary band gear plus three passengers (one illegally).

Now the wonderful Pin has procured me a stereo on one of his car trashing/stealing sprees, and I'm struggling to find an online resource so that I can get instructions and a wiring diagram for free.

While we're at it, I wouldn't mind knowing the recommended tyre pressure. The van came without a manual.

This post has been typed while listening to Mogwai and fighting back tears over the beauty of Kids Will Be Skeletons.

sleazenation

08:31 / 22.04.05

I know fuck all about cars, but my old man's an engineer and carries out all his own motor maintainence with the aid of the correct Haynes motor manuals for the car he is working on - these manuals can often be found in libraries/ordered through interlibtrary loan...

The Strobe

08:35 / 22.04.05

Seth - does your van as is have any speakers or cabling for stereos? They're usually, from what little I know, not that hard to fit as long as the cables and stuff are already installed. Power connector, audio. Also, try Googling for the stereo's make/model and see if you can download a manual for it. If it's something half decent, Sony, Blaupunkt, JVC, etc, that's probably going to be possible.

Seth

08:41 / 22.04.05

It has the cabling and speakers, yeah. I'm going to wander down to the car park with my tools and see if I can trial and error it...

Seth

08:54 / 22.04.05

...well that was a mission of some daftness. There's a big lead which I assume is for power, there's one poorly bound multicore of six cables and one of four. They look like they've never been used, as none of them are trimmed (unless one of the owner's cut them back) I need an Escort wiring diagram to make head or tail of it.

The stereo itself has a sticker on top which shows how it should be wired. I'm hoping that the van's wiring diagram should be enough.

The Strobe

10:26 / 22.04.05

Think it should be enough, tbh. The big lead is power - has a big white connector IIRC. Good luck. I have no idea why car stereos are so much weirder than normal audio equipment.

Seth

14:11 / 22.04.05

It seems everyone on the web charges for their wiring diagrams. I've got my eye on an E-Bay auction for an Escort manual, but in the meantime £25 and a trip to Southside Car Audio did the trick.

I got a tape adaptor a while back (so I had a means to persuade people to let me play my MP3s as oppsosed to their dodgy tapes). An hour later and I'm cranking Lightning Bolt out of my speakers! Hooray! And it doesn't sound half bad either...

HCE

18:53 / 22.04.05

Boo to stealing somebody's stereo, you jerks.

Seth

20:09 / 22.04.05

Pin didn't actually steal someone's stereo. That was a joke on my part.

The joke being that Pin is the least likely person to steal a car stereo on Barbelith.

Apart from me. Being that I work for the Police and all.

HCE

00:14 / 23.04.05

Your lies have shattered my faith in you, Seth.

(By which I mean that I apologize for calling you a jerk.)

Seth

16:11 / 23.04.05

Kisses.

Jack The Bodiless

14:47 / 24.04.05

He is a jerk, though.

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