240 Headunit wiring in an 1983 240

Pulled out the nearly 40 year old headunit from my Volvo 240...everything is hardwired in.

I cut the harness and need to source a diagram that indicates which wire does what....they're mostly all blue coded wires, nothing that's "logical"

I'm installing a single din Pioneer in it's place.

anyone can lead me to the right info?

There is supposed to be a connector in the car harness for the radio. Places like crutchfield would sell you the side that goes to the radio so you can wire that to your new radio harness. I would check Volvowiringdiagrams.com and see what wire is what. It's been awhile so I don't remember them anymore.

You could also consider getting the car side of the connector and wiring that in. A pigtail of wire and connector from a salvage car. Then getting the radio side from crutchfield or a stereo place and connect up the radio that way. Then it is easy to remove in the future.

After many wasted Saturdays tracking wires I have determined that the best thing to do is eliminate the factory radio wiring. Pull a fresh constant and switched hot from the fuse box, run a dedicated ground, and pull new speaker wires wherever you are installing speakers. The frustration factor is very high on Volvo radio schematics.

I'm not sure if it's the same, but if you can find the "TP30808-1_wiring_diagrams_1985_PRELIM.pdf", page 5 shows the 9pin (3x3) radio power & speaker connector.

Finding which wire pairs go to which speakers can be done by touching the leads to a 9V battery. You hear a crackle from the speaker.
Dave B.

Reach into the back of the radio pocket. You may find a plug in the rear left corner, or it may be on the outside of the pocket on the driver's side. Take note of where the speaker wires are attached on the body side of the harness plug, and which pair of blue wires connect to the radio side plug in that location. I think the center wire and the one below it are left channel, and the ones on the right are right channel. This is with the curved part of the plug at the top.

I usually attach the stock plug to the radio's harness using bullet connectors. Put female bullets on the speaker (+) wires, the ground, and any remote trigger lead, then use male bullets on the speaker (-) wires, and both power leads. That way, you won't accidentally wire things backward. Your rear speaker wiring, do the same.

dbarton said:

Finding which wire pairs go to which speakers can be done by touching the leads to a 9V battery. You hear a crackle from the speaker.
Dave B.

Click to expand...

I think this is the way to go thanks Dave!