Radio harness

My harness has been clipped right off, can anyone tell me what wires are what. I have:

Orange
Black/Green
Brown/Green
Black
Green
Green/White
Yellow/Brown
Grey/Yellow
Grey
Grey/White
Blue
Blue/White
White

This is a 1988 UK spec 740 Turbo

George

'87 745 GLE Turbo Diesel Intercooler
'88 745 Turbo Intercooler

[Peter Milnes]

How many speakers are there and does the car have an amplifier fitted? Usually there are two speakers each end of the dash and one in each door if an amplifier is fitted. What radio head unit is fitted? If it is not a Volvo radio I have a set of radio, tape player and amplifier plus all the speakers that I can sell to you including the little handbooks. There is no need for a radio code as it has been nullified. I dare say I have the wiring for it all as well, but it may need a bit of searching!!

All the best, Peter.

I have a Kenwoord RDS headunit with CD changer so that is not what I need, but thanks. It has four speakers and possibly the amplifier.

George

'87 745 GLE Turbo Diesel Intercooler
'88 745 Turbo Intercooler

[Peter Milnes]

That is why the wires have been snipped. The Kenwood has it's own power amplifier stages. Does any of it work at present? IIRC there is an adaptive lead set available at most Car Audio dealers, certainly in UK. It's cost is not prohibitive.It is designed to connect the head unit to the speakers without going through the Volvo amplifier.

All the best, Peter.

Nothing works as all I have is a bunch of wires that I do not know what they do. Some I can guess, others not. I have a harness for my radio that is marked up, i.e. power, antenna, speaker so and so but I need to know which cable to match this up to.

George

'87 745 GLE Turbo Diesel Intercooler
'88 745 Turbo Intercooler

[pettaw]

first of all do you have a multimeter? If not get one, a cheapo digi one will do nicely.

Set it to read 12 Volts and then try connecting across different combinations of wires until you find the supply. Work out which one is the + and which one is the minus. I reckon it should be the single coloured ones, so try them first. Should the radio work off ignition? If so, then there will be two 12V feeds, one permanent live that works all the time and keeps the memory code working and one that comes on with ignition that powers the radio itself.

As to working out which speaker connection goes where, the best way is to get a 1.5V battery, like in your TV remote, and connect it to the speaker wires. when you hear a slight hum/click at the moment of connection, you know you've found a speaker. As to getting them in phase? That's really difficult, but extremely important, out of phase=bad sound. trial and error I guess. HTH

Andy

Andy,
You can check the phasing of the speakers with your 1.5V battery.
If you remove a speaker cover and watch the cone as as you apply the battery, with the polarity one way the cone will push out, reverse the polarity and it will pull in. From memory should push out with + to +, but, as you probably know, it does not matter which way round they are connected as long as all the speakers are the same.
Colin.

I thank you for these tips. I had a bit of an idea today when I went to the Volvo u-pull-it in Holland. This place is great, by the way, they have everything and it is all up for grabs, the prices come out of their heads, and often these are quite low. Anyway, I found a car with the right setup of wires and with the plugs intact, so I cut them off and connected them to my wires. Now, I need to get the right harness and disconnect the amp. Very clever, even if I do say so myself. Will make changing stereo very simple.

George

'87 745 GLE Turbo Diesel Intercooler
'88 745 Turbo Intercooler