I see others have posted similar msgs for different models and years. I'm in the middle of upgrading the factory radio. I have purchased a standard kenwood and trying to match wires. I pulled out my Haynes Manual and found a wiring diagram, but many of the wires don't match. I began testing the red wires with a multi meter to see what was providing the battery power and what was providing the ignition. Haven't found any wires that produce more that 1 Volt. The radio was working before I took it out, so I know something was giving it power. I'm checking the fuse next. Anyone had similar problems are know of better wiring info?

 

I had the same problem on my '97 Disco. Replaced (tried to) the factory radio with a Kenwood as well. I bought it from Crutchfield and they sent me some sort of converter box that was supposed to make hooking it up a breeze. After 3 nights of pure hell I finally took it to a professional radio place. They somehow tied into my wiring with a device that had A/V connectors on the end of it. I'm assuming they hooked it right into my preouts after that. I don't know what they did with the power. The only reason I know what I know is because my LR was recently broken into and the radio was stolen. I've gotten a replacement radio and you can *bet* I'm going to have someone else do it. I would like new speakers also .. .but I just don't understand how the "premium" systems work in these things. Will going through a factory amp create distortion in the new speakers?? Do I have to disconnect it? I really don't know what I'm doing here and I can't seem to find any resources to help me.

Patrick

 

Thanks for the info Patrick. I think I've figured it out. I used the Haynes Manual Wiring Diagram for general reference. The front Left and Right wires were backwards though. The Power wires with the battery's negative were the hardest to find. From the standard wiring diagram, the purple and green/orange (I think, will have to go look again, but it was labled as some other power feed) ended up being the battery and ignition wires. I had to use a voltmeter and used the thick black found which turned out being the negative battery wire. I asked the local Halfords (UK Auto Parts / Accessories / Bike Store for those of you outside the UK) for a wiring adapter and they had something listed, but it was going to take like a week to get so I was stubborn and did it myself. So far its working, but of course the new Radio / CD Player has much more power and is overpowering the speakers. So, now I'll probably be looking for new speakers and coming back to the forum for new advice soon.

 

You bring up a good point, re: overpowering the speakers. I expected the same thing to happen to mine, but with the way they hooked it up everything working fine, and the speakers weren't overpowered. I'm sure they didn't disconnect the factory amp. Maybe hooking directly to the preouts made it so that the head unit isn't using its own amp.. ?? ? I wanted to get new speakers too, but I don't know how they would react to this configuration.

Patrick