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Clusterduck of wires in my dash where a radio should be... Help!

A

Ahtum

New member
Joined
Jun 23, 2015
Location
Greater Boston
So I bought my 245 bus without a radio figuring I'd deal with that when I had the time and now I've finally tried to put a radio in. It turns out one of the previous owners tried to do some modification and then took it out and now I'm left with a mess of wires and absolutely no way to decipher them. I have no idea how to fix it, what ones I need, what ones I don't, and my last resort is going to be to take it to Best Buy and let them figure it out.

So here's some pictures, and here goes a long shot...

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I'd be much obliged for any and all help to sort through this. Thank you.
 
My first and only suggestion is that you cut out everything that does not appear OEM and contact the tech department of Chruchfield for advice. They have all the schematics and connectors to fix such as this mess and are very helpful.

I once sold a very nice car with a factory high end stereo to a teen that had more money than good sense. He proceeded to spent a $1000 upgrading the audio system and finally admitted that the original factory system was better.
 
TestPoint said:
My first and only suggestion is that you cut out everything that does not appear OEM and contact the tech department of Chruchfield for advice. They have all the schematics and connectors to fix such as this mess and are very helpful.

I once sold a very nice car with a factory high end stereo to a teen that had more money than good sense. He proceeded to spent a $1000 upgrading the audio system and finally admitted that the original factory system was better.
Click to expand...

The problem is that I'm honestly not sure where OEM begins and where aftermarket crap ends. I can assume that the red wires aren't Volvo, but past that, I have no clue.
 
Hard time working with the images you used, might be an idea to resize them down?

Looks like it may have been wired up correctly, the grey and white square connectors are the original Volvo fittings. The smaller black fitting is head unit specific, could be Sony, Kenwood etc. Purple, green, grey and white wires are speaker, negative has the black stripe. try looking for a Sony head unit wiring diagram (colours may be standardized but they all seem similar to the last Sony install I did).

The reason for some of the hash you have is probably someone trying to unsure backwards compatibility - I cut off the Volvo connectors and wired direct.
 
Grey factory 4 pin connector is for rear speakers.
White factory 9 pin connector (with 7 pins in it) is for front speakers and power source/ground.

Standardized AFTERMARKET wiring colors/functions
White & white/black...front left speaker
Grey & grey/black...front right speaker
Green & green/black...rear left speaker
Purple & purple/black...rear right speaker

Red...switched 12V+
Yellow...constant 12V+
Black...ground
SOLID blue...power antenna
Blue/white...amp turn-on
 
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pshnfry said:
Hard time working with the images you used, might be an idea to resize them down?

Looks like it may have been wired up correctly, the grey and white square connectors are the original Volvo fittings. The smaller black fitting is head unit specific, could be Sony, Kenwood etc. Purple, green, grey and white wires are speaker, negative has the black stripe. try looking for a Sony head unit wiring diagram (colours may be standardized but they all seem similar to the last Sony install I did).
Click to expand...

Unfortunately my free trial with ImageShack ran out the day I posted those so I can no longer really resize them - sorry about that, I hate that they're so big lol. (anyone know a better/free host...?)

And my brother thought it was a Pioneer one. The radio I'm trying to put in is also a Pioneer but they didn't go together. Would it be feasible to take out the wires from the smaller black fitting and put them into the corresponding spaces in the connector that goes into my radio?

lummert said:
Did you try downloading a wiring diagram?
Click to expand...
93Volvo240 said:
www.volvowiringdiagrams.com.
Click to expand...

I did not, but I guess that should be my next step. I'll check back in.

24DinCT said:
Grey factory 4 pin connector is for rear speakers.
White factory 9 pin connector (with 7 pins in it) is for front speakers and power source/ground.
Click to expand...

I'm gonna go and look at the mess and see if I can make sense of it now. That seems really helpful, thank you.
 
Okay - checked it all out and I made sense of most of it. I'm gonna go wire it up tomorrow and hopefully will have a working radio then!

One more weird question. The Pioneer connector was wired such that the white and white/black wires coming from it were wired to an intertwined orange and white wires coming from the dash. I don't see those on the wiring diagrams and I have no idea why it was set up like that. Here's a pic.
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What should I do with the orange and white wires??
 
that old looking grey connector should be OEM.
the white and transparent connectors, should be aftermarket.

Wiring diagram is really the only thing you can use at this point.

should grab some masking tape follow the wires all the way in, and start labeling the wire endpoints based on what the original wire is.

Go through them one by one, and once finished, you will be able to make sense of what they are when comparing to the wiring diagram.
 
1choice said:
that old looking grey connector should be OEM.
the white and transparent connectors, should be aftermarket.

Wiring diagram is really the only thing you can use at this point.

should grab some masking tape follow the wires all the way in, and start labeling the wire endpoints based on what the original wire is.

Go through them one by one, and once finished, you will be able to make sense of what they are when comparing to the wiring diagram.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I mostly figured it out except what the orange and white wires are. They're not in the wiring diagram and I have no idea why they're connected to where the front left speaker should go.
 
Ahtum said:
Yeah, I mostly figured it out except what the orange and white wires are. They're not in the wiring diagram and I have no idea why they're connected to where the front left speaker should go.
Click to expand...

The orange/white pair is clearly the work of someone not employed in the automotive realm; wires pulled from phone or ethernet cable. You should be able to find the other end, given some PO installed them, not the car maker. Maybe they replace the car's wiring to the front left speaker? Ugh.

You could try to learn what they are doing on the radio end as well (if not the left front speaker output), and keep in mind the wiring may not be related to getting music from the speakers; i.e. security, dimming, speed varied volume, who knows what else.
 
Well, here's a fun development. My radio isn't getting any power. I wired it all up, put in the antenna cable, and then there was absolutely no power to it. I took out my multimeter to make absolute sure, but where power should be coming from in the OEM harness it's not. Just to be safe I checked all the prongs, but none of them had an ounce of voltage. I checked the fuse, and it also powers the cigarette lighter and the rear wipers, both of which work... What do? How does this happen?
 
Ahtum said:
Well, here's a fun development. My radio isn't getting any power. I wired it all up, put in the antenna cable, and then there was absolutely no power to it. I took out my multimeter to make absolute sure, but where power should be coming from in the OEM harness it's not. Just to be safe I checked all the prongs, but none of them had an ounce of voltage. I checked the fuse, and it also powers the cigarette lighter and the rear wipers, both of which work... What do? How does this happen?
Click to expand...

At this point I think you'll just have to trace wires to figure out where your power pins are wired to. Or find a junkyard car with intact radio wiring, pull it and swap it in...

Make sure it's grounded properly too?
 
Aftermarket radios need 3 things to turn on.

Ground
12V+DC switched
12V+DC constant

If you're getting no DC voltage at the factory 9 pin plug... go to the fuse box and check there for a loose/disconnected spade terminal.

The factory uses spade terminals off the back of the fusebox to power multiple circuits off of 1 fuse. If the spades for the wiper and lighter are still attached but the radio's isn't...you won't find any voltage at the factory radio 9 pin plug.

That twisted pair of wires coming out of the dash is not stock. Looks like the PO used them to run the driver's front door speaker. If the PO in fact did this...he might've ran that twisted pair under the driver's side dash...or even all the way into the driver's door directly to the speaker itself. For what purpose...no one knows. But unless the factory FL speaker wires are completely fried...there was no reason to do so...plus they are WAY too thin of a gauge.

If you know how to use a DMM...then you should be testing the factory speaker wires for impedance...1 pair of wires at a time.
 
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Okay, I feel like a dumbass writing this, but it turns out that when I was testing the voltage output of the Volvo harness I was grounding it like an idiot. So I tried again, grounding it to the ground in the harness and it's putting out power... I tested the wire going all the way back to the radio and it's all intact. So I guess I'll just do that for the black and the red as well, for the ground and swtiched 12V, and I'll report back.

EDIT: I went and checked. The yellow and red are both putting out power and all three have full connections all the way to the radio. Only weird thing was that the red put out about 12V and the yellow only put out like 2.7V. Is that why it isn't working? How do I fix that?

EDIT 2: I just realized this might be worth mentioning. My car today has been very weak electrically. It'll ping anytime I try to turn the cabin light on or use my electric locks. It drives, but I think that means that the battery is crap or the alternator is sucking. I don't know if it would continue to put out the full 12V or whether it would put out less as the battery dies.
 
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I also suspect that one of the wires from the random orange and white braided wires is one of the dimmer lights, but I'm not sure which one I should be attaching to the orange/white from my radio. There is an orange/white wire from the car, but what should I be doing with the other orange wire?
 
Have you traced it to the point that you can identify it on a wiring diagram? It sounds like you're saying it goes to the dimmer switch for the dash lights, which doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
 
The only reason that I thought that that might be the case is because on the key for the wire colors orange is the dash dimmer. I don't imagine it's a tragedy if I don't hook it up right, but it's still probably good to have.

My main issue right now is that I have no idea why my radio isn't getting power. Yellow and red are putting out power and black is working as a ground. Is there else anything it could be?
 
24DinCT said:
Grey factory 4 pin connector is for rear speakers.
White factory 9 pin connector (with 7 pins in it) is for front speakers and power source/ground.

Standardized AFTERMARKET wiring colors/functions
White & white/black...front left speaker
Grey & grey/black...front right speaker
Green & green/black...rear left speaker
Purple & purple/black...rear right speaker

Red...switched 12V+
Yellow...constant 12V+
Black...ground
SOLID blue...power antenna
Blue/white...amp turn-on
Click to expand...


Very easy stuff. This man laid it out for you. Same info should be labeled on your new radio.....

Only three wires needed to make it run!

1. Find an always-hot wire, or run one from the power distribution block under the hood if want to keep it VERY simple.

2. Find the key-on wire. Not that hard. again, if you can't find one, or are too lazy, run one from the fuse box.

3. Ground that ****.

Now, your radio will turn on. Now wire up the 8 wires for the speakers. Again, if you are unable to find the wires for whatever reason I suggest, in your case, that you simply just run fresh speaker wire. OR you could do it right and use the multimeter to trace the circuits, but sounds like you haven't been able to do that.
 
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