Replacing Radio

[goodnigh]

Years before I owned the car someone replaced the factory radio

with a Kenwood. I disconnected the Kenwood a few weeks ago

since it seemed to be the source of an odd battery drain. I mean over

night the battery would go dead. Never determined if the Kenwood

was at fault but the problem went away after I pulled the radio.

Bought an original Ford radio ('73 style) from Don of OMS complete

with bezel. Now the only job left is to figure out the mess below.

I have so far identified the live power plug (female), everything

else is up for grabs.

mike

 

[Don65Stang]

Shouldn't be too hard to figure out Mike. The bronze/clear colored wires with the white stripe on the right side and center of the pic are probably speaker wires. You may or may not have an additional power power for the radio face lights that's connected to the dash lights & dimmer switch (possibly the lt blue w/ red stripe or the yellow wire in your pic).

All in all if you have 4 speakers then you'd have 8 wires for those, plus a 12v source & ground, then possibly the dimmer switch variable 0-12v source that they may have spliced in.

From the pics it looks like you only have 2 speakers in your system though.

 

[goodnigh]

Shouldn't be too hard to figure out Mike. The bronze/clear colored wires with the white stripe on the right side and center of the pic are probably speaker wires. You may or may not have an additional power power for the radio face lights that's connected to the dash lights & dimmer switch (possibly the lt blue w/ red stripe or the yellow wire in your pic).

All in all if you have 4 speakers then you'd have 8 wires for those, plus a 12v source & ground, then possibly the dimmer switch variable 0-12v source that they may have spliced in.

From the pics it looks like you only have 2 speakers in your system though.

There are/were four speakers in the system. The factory door

speakers which are no longer attached and rear speakers we installed.

Since the removed Kenwood had "advanced" features, we also found

cables with RCA connectors under the carpet when that was replaced.

I do plan on disconnecting one battery cable before I start yanking

wires from under the dash, or keep a Halon extinquisher nearby.

mike


It all ties to this, the Kenwood connector.

mike

 

[Machman]

Mike , it should not be that bad , just take it slow and mark all wires w/ tape as to where they should go.

Strip out all the modern junk for the kenwood and you should have left 4 wire pairs for front & rear speakers , power wire , ground.

 

[Wyostang]

I am glad to see this post I am trying to figure what kind system I would like to put together for my car. I kinda want an mp3 option but I wonder if I could get the old 8 track player to work. Then I could..y'know go 8 track hunting I guess?

 

[goodnigh]

All of the wires have been identified and cut.

One wire remained, a yellow wire that ran from

the Kenwood connector to ???

Turns out the yellow wire is labeled "battery".

This info from Kenwood's website manuals section.

A hot wire so I need to find out what it is connected to.

mike

 

[Don65Stang]

Face lights dimmer lead?

 

[goodnigh]

Face lights dimmer lead?

Already identified the radio's power source called "ignition" on the

wiring diagram (red), probably a simple clock feed. It would be easy to seal the wire, but it is not Ford wiring so what did they connect it to?

mike

 

[midlife]

Try tapping into the cigarette lighter, or if you have a fuse buss (diagonal fuse), tap into the three prong plug.

 

[goodnigh]

Here is the wire set.

You can see the single yellow wire on the right

headed to Kenwood's connector. The two yellow

wires on the left of the 'not Ford stock' connection

is what concerns me. A previous owner decided

to tap into who knows what by cutting the wire.

The three wires above are the power source for the

radio and are attached to the proper Ford connector.

mike