I decided I was going to tackle the after-market radio in my Disco today. It buzzed and hummed pretty bad. The previous owner told me it just needed a ground wire. I thought to myself "hmmm.....if you hook up the wires right, you already HAVE a ground wire."

I swear, whoever installed it spent more time pulling out the little prongs on the sleeve than they did wiring the thing. I should've taken a picture....its the most half-@$$ wiring job I've ever seen.

Long story short, instead of connecting each speaker wire to its counterpart on the aftermarket harness, they daisy-chained each positive speaker wire together until they got down to one wire. Same for the negative speaker wire. Then they wired those to a red plug and a white plug, then shoved those into the "amp out" connections on the head unit!

No wonder the radio sounds like crap!! I came in laughing and my wife asked why. I told her it was so bad, it was actually funny.

 

geeze man, very creative i must add... crappy, but creative...

Good luck with that one friend....

 

It is amazing what some will do just to rig something. I will never understand why people try if they don't know how to do something... I have a factory head unit and a CD changer, but do not know the VIN of the truck or the radio code. I would sell the head unit cheap, but can't guarantee you could get the code..

 

I appreciate it, but I'd have to wire up the changer as mine didn't have one (nor the wiring for it as far as I can tell). I have a decent head unit...will just take me a little longer to undo the mess that's already there. Plus, there is a ton of mechanical work to be done. Most of it is maintenance or reversing the bad trend set by previous owners. There's more fluids on it than in it, so I will have lots of joy replacing every seal, gasket, and hose I can lay my hands on LOL.

 

When I bought my D1 the radio would short out so I took it apart to find that the PO had used the blue painters tape to splice the wires together. It was a mess!

 

They were half right on the wiring, if I recall correctly. My 97 used a common ground for all 4 speakers. Why anyone would think to connect all the positives together I have no idea. Not only does it sound horrible, as you know, you also have no control over balance and fade.

 

I found in my ash tray the radio code which consists of five numbers, what do I do now to get the radio working.....it currently only plays the national weather service channel.