Radio Help
 

The owner before me installed a crappy aftermarket no name cd player/radio. Obviously they used a harness and really chopped up the wiring in there. I'm deciding between putting another factory radio in there or an aftermarket radio. I have the factory radio to install.

Side note. while i was messing around in there i did something that made my interior overhead lights stop working and my clock resets every time i shut the truck off.

What the heck is going on in this picture

OK I will do my best here but troubleshooting this online is never easy, first off a question of my own, are you talking about the rover clock or a radio clock? now the overhead lights is most likely a short as there is a wire behind the radio that is tied into that circuit I would check all the fuses first, if all are good you will need a meter to figure out the problem, now for what is going on in your picture it appears that all the factory wiring is still there, as well as some additional new wiring, here is the problem, there is a factory amp located high in the passenger kick panel that may or may not still be wired to the speakers, this will need to be checked if you want to return to stock. if you don't want to return to stock I would test the non factory wires coming out of the dash (if you are confident they are attached to speakers you can test them with a AA battery) research "popping speakers" to learn how. the other wire is most likely either a power wire or a ground and you will only no for sure if it is tested. using a meter will be best but if you don't feel very confident in yourself taking it to a professional may be best. if you are confident in yourself I can help you out.

I have a 97 that the original cd player/amp under the passenger's seat had apparently been fried then replaced with a similar but not identical unit.

I was not impressed with the quality of the sound, then it acted up, so out it came. I am looking for just some basic sound system to throw in the hole in the dash preferably with a cd player and radio capability but don't want to spend a fortune.

As far as the original sound systems in these, I have been told the amps were not that great. So I feel going back t original would be a waste.

I see a lot of sites that have sound systems salvaged from all sorts of cars, would ptting in a gogd quality system from a different vehicle be that hard?

Honestly if you are going to make any changes to any factory audio system, I would go with aftermarket. About the only factory audio system I would consider repairing with OEM is the MACH audio systems used in Fords and some of the Bose systems in Audi and a few other car companys, because all of the components in those systems are designed to work together and there aren't really any direct aftermarket replacement components unless you plan to replace the whole system. I personally rewire the audio system first thing on every vehicle I own, however I rewire it in a way that I can revert back to stock with very minimal effort if needed, this allows the next owner (and I explain it to them) to have the option to keep stock or convert to aftermarket easily! (without the mess in the picture above of course!)
I have only worked on 4 or 5 rovers audio systems(including mine) in my life professionally however I don't think I remember hearing one that sounded good to me stock. mine didn't work well at all when I bought it.

This is mess I got when I bought my truck , just wires .But truck runs and that is all that maters.

Attachment 47034

This is my redneck fix while I am working on the truck. Soon I will have to install new radio and I am curious about this tread.

Attachment 47035

Wow Arm and hammer, I would actually be willing to bet the wiring out of the radio cavity is already rewired to bypass the amp (judging on the aftermarket antenna plug) and seeing as how the wiring is wrapped up it appears to be actually done by someone who knows what they are doing, but then again maybe not. if I knew what wire colors were in that loom coming out of the dash I may be able to shed some more light on what they are. also I see wires wrapped around the shifter, are those the same wires?

I went to one Audio Shop and they want a ffffing fortune for a "System"... out of the question.

Pep Boys has a few units that seem decent for 50 to 100 bucks for the indash receiver/cd/usb units.

I also am wondering about just using a cheap lap top to store and play audio on. Anybody ever done that?

I want to keep cost minimal.

well here is my view on aftermarket mobile electronics, basically you get what you pay for, now with that being true it isn't quite as simple as that, and what I mean is the $90 pioneer entry level head unit has pretty much the same tuner and amplifier as there $400-$500 head units, now if you want more control of the audio such as time correction or graphic equalizing, it will be an extra amount of money, if you want Ipod control, HD radio, bluetooth built in etc. well then that basic $90 unit is now going to cost $300 a good rule of thumb is to compare a variety of different product lines (all the good ones offer a wide variety of head units) with the features you want vs. the price range you want. I would say for the common name brands $120 - $200 is average to what is commonly bought. Anything above that is for people looking for audiophile or people with too much money that just think more expensive equals better, but don't know what alpine F1 status is! and people that go with the $90 - $110 range are the ones that are either looking for a cheap name brand, or really don't need any features (common amongst senior citizens). now those radios are your pioneer, alpine, kenwoods, JVCs, and I guess we can include Sony. now if you want cheaper you can get Dual, Jensen, Audiovox, Rampage, and I guess we can include roadmasters in there as well. these radios will offer you the same options as above but may not last as long as the higher name brands. now with all that aside,I personally stand behind Alpine, I was in the past an alpine dealer for a few companies and have always suggested them as well as use them for my personal head units, never killed one, in fact my old one in my tool box was bought new in 1994 and was retired about 5 years ago to upgrade to a new alpine with IPOD and MP3 support. My current alpine retails around $200 and I it is all I need. I would love a better system but hey we all have budgets!!! If you have any questions on brands or features or would like any other questions answered I will be happy to help.

ok so here's another picture and some more info. i'm going to start troubleshooting tomorrow morning. it is the clock not the clock on the radio that starts over every time i crank the truck. what are these wires? are they factory. are they aftermarket speaker wires? when i had the radio working, only the front speakers worked. is this an amp thing.

those appear to be aftermarket, in the first picture they look like they dissapear into the dash heading to there respective sides (wired directly to the speakers) I would try tapping a AA battery to the pairs meaning if you have 2 wires paired together connect one to one end of the battery and then tap the other wire to the other end of the battery really fast, this will cause the speaker to "pop" telling you what wire is what. it will also identify the polarity of the wires if you can watch the speaker while you do it, (if the speaker pops out toward you then the positive side of the battery will be on the positive wire) popping the speaker a handful of times will not harm the speaker unless you overdue it. As for the clock problem the answer is easy although fixing it may not be so simple, somehow the constant power going to the clock was wired to switched power and now the memory loses power everytime the truck is off, the easy solution would be to find the memory wire and apply constant power to it however I would suggest figuring out why and how it was changed in the first place. I am willing to bet clocks constant power is on a shared circuit with the radio and someone rewired it after blowing a fuse with switched power. my first step would be to check ALL the fuses I would be willing to bet you have at least one or two blown.

as for the 2 wires that stand alone those are probably power and ground, and I am guessing with the clock issue the power is switched.

let us know how it goes

on a second note, you mentioned the factory radio, all connectors appear to be there (2 antennas, cd changer din cable, and 3 ISO conectors) did you try just plugging that in? of course I am sure it would require a replaced fuse if any are blown