andrew benn

I've just bought a 96STI and very nice it is to. I've also just signed as member with scoobynet. In my last car i spent around £2000 on ICE and have saved it as so to place it in my new scooby. On taking the standard addzest head unit out, I realised that the connections were not going to permit me to put my sony head unit in. Off to the local car audio shop i went with my sony and the connector from the scooby. After Umming and Arrring for 10 mins he said "here are, that'll do the trick, £15 please". I was Happy as larry that it would all be so simple!!!!! When joining the two connectors together I heard a crack and my sony began to smoke like it was on fire ( the word gutted springs to mind). Well being 6'4" and 19 stone dont worry i'll get a new stereo out of mr "that'll do the trick" but for future refference can anyone tell what is needed when i try again.

thanx in advance

andy

Adam M

You would be better off to just connect wire to wire and not try to put in an easy fix plug or things like this can happen. There is a chance that your head unit may still be okay.

There are only three wires to worry about.

Permanent power (for memory of radio stations and audio settings)

Switched power (for power stereo itself)

Earth (to complete the circuit)

Always best to separate these three from the speakers cables which are normally brightly coloured, with different colour lines going down them. This will leave the above three wires

Some have extra for illumination and electric aerial sending but these are normally marked.

All you have to do is make sure that the earth on your car goes to the earth on the head unit.

Make sure that you separate the speaker wires. That way if you put a cable with power in it to any of the other remaining wires there is little damage you can do (if any come to think about it)


Use a voltmeter to find out which wires from the car are earths and which are live.

Easy to do, set meter to dc up to 20Volts or so.

Unplug the stereo first.

Stick the black one on the the door hinge bolt and prod the red one into one of the wires that you suspect. If there is a reading of around 10 to 12 volts then you have power. This may covefrom illumination feed, turn off lights it will dissappear otherwise it is either switched live or permanent, turn off ignition, if the reading goes to zero it is switched live if not it is permanent.

Now you know, you just have to connect these to the correct terminals/wires of the stereo.

If you knew this then I apologise for patronising you, if not, good luck.

[This message has been edited by Adam M (edited 16-03-2000).]