Stereo electrical schematic

[Wormburner]

I am replacing my '86 944's stereo with an after market head unit and cd changer. Is there anywhere I can find the wiring schematic for the stereo? Or does someone have an idea of what each wire is for, which one goes to the speakers, power source, ground, etc. I have the 4 speaker cassette stereo. Thanks

[Gielamonster]

Go in there with a multimeter. obviously you're gonna have eight speaker wires, +12V and ground, and an antenna. I couldn't find a wire that had +12V all the time (with key out) so I ran one (fused) from the battery. The +12 the old radio used only came on with the key in accessory or run, so I just made that my turn on lead.

Here's my stereo install page.

Good luck

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Gielamonster
My 944 Page

[This message has been edited by Gielamonster (edited 06-26-2000).]

[mike944]

to find out which speaker wires go to which speakers, i use a AA battery. you can touch the speaker wires to it, and you'll hear a light clicking out of whichever speaker those wires are attached to. Just start labeling everything when you do this, and you'll be done in no time!

[Gielamonster]

and of course, the red wire goes with the red/brown, yellow and yellow/brown, white and white/brown, black and black/brown. I think I even remember white and black were either for the fronts or the rears, and vice versa.

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Gielamonster
My 944 Page

[todd951]

Actually, if your car is an '86 you have a 2-channel (left and right) receiver, and a front/rear fader knob in the console in front of the shifter. If you're replacing it with a four channel receiver, you have two options: 1) only use the two front channels in your new receiver and leave the factory wiring in your car intact, or; 2) re-wire your car's wiring so that the wires going to the four speakers go directly to the receiver instead of through the fader. This actually isn't very hard, but you do need to be competent with electrical work. I did this in my '85 when I replaced the receiver.
The Haynes manual has wiring diagrams in the back that helped a little when I was re-wiring the stereo. The only thing is the color codes might not be exactly right, so you should still check everything with a multimeter. I followed the wiring diagrams in the Haynes manual and ended up with the front and rear channels reversed (ie, adjusting the fade on the receiver to the front actually made the sound move to the rear).