wow. 9 hours later i have a new stereo. thank god my brother used to do installations or i'd been up a creek. i'd never seen such a mess in my life! a p.o. had installed a voice-activated, wild-ass stereo back in the early 90's with a huge amp, crossovers and other components i don't know the name of..but also had had front and rear radar detectors, and a hand's-free phone system, alarm stuff....whew..
at least 4-5 hours of our time was spent just trying to remove the okd stuff and wiring while not damaging anything electrical on the car, as the the pics attest - that was no small feat. one critical error i apparently made was not to disconnect the negative battery terminal, so now you later-car guy's guessed it - i have an airbag and seatbelt warning lights that won't extinguish. damn. anyway, the new blaupunkt bermuda looks and sounds great. no amp, i just wanted the head unit. already did my job of head-banging back in the day..i'm fine with 45x4 right now..lol. can't thank robin, my little brother, enough for his help. without him it simply wouldn't have gotten done..his install was purrrrrrfect. and a shop either would have sent me away or charged an arm and two legs for the job. here are the pics:
ryan
the big ass amp is attached to the other side of this plywood that was used for mounting up front:
factory radio wiring harness was butchered, so we saw we'd have to wire everything individually:
another angle of the mess up front. yes, my hood shocks are weak..lol.
robin's fave part - cutting!
robin in action, beginning to crimp wires..finally!
beautiful job of wiring, robin.
i believe memory went to 'constant power' and stereo itself to 'switched power':
the new blaupunkt looks perfect in the dash. i hate gawdy radios.
the growing pile of old wire and components..
