Well I've got my stereo off the internet for my Mk1 Octavia, but it looks as though the install isn't going to be as simple as I thought. The wiring for the speakers appears to have been modified so it won't plug into the slot on the back of the stereo.

Since I'm ok with mechanicals but hopeless with electricals, I was hoping someone knew if there's anyone reliable who could install it for me?

I have a Halfords near me - what's their install service like?

Thanks

Edited 30 June, 201016 yr by Tibbs

TBH wiring isnt that hard, just daunting because there is a lot.

Has the wiring been modified or just a different plug to the stereo going in now? Although there is a standardised connection, not many use it, but essentially its all the same, just a different plug on it.

It could just be a case of getting a wiring loom or two from fleabay.

Could be as simple as;

Old connector------new connector

or

Old connector----ISOconnector----new connector

depending on what connectors you have and whats available to buy

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by Rhoobarb

Chicken_eyebrow looked at the wiring at the RR day on Sunday, and said that the speaker wire had been made into some kind of weird female/male arrangement rather than the nice plug that should be on there. I'll try and post a picture if I can find my camera tonight.

I also think I bought the wrong surround and cage off ebay, but we'll have to see if I can mod it to fit.

I've tried looking, but is there a step by step guide on how to fit a stereo into a Mark I octavia? I saw one guide on here, but it assumed a level of competancy I don't have :p

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by Tibbs

As long as you get the colour codes for the wires it doesnt matter what connectors are on the end. Do you feel you are capable of stripping and clamping wires, using a multimeter and reading simple diagrams? If so you should be able to, give it a go. It is really just matching colours and symbols with what you have to what you want to have. If you feel uncomfortable with it though, its prob best to just go for an ICE installer.

Check the ISO wiring sticky for a few hinters.

What you need to do is get a pic of the current connectors AND the one on the new stereo, including any pin diagrams on the stereo

Essentially to get you going you just need 3 wires, the colours are usually Red (Permanent Positive), Yellow (Switched Positive) and Black (Negative) and they are usually thicker than the other wires. This should get you power to your new head unit. The rest is just speakers or accessories.

Edited 15 June, 201016 yr by Rhoobarb

Well wish me luck - I'm off to Halfords to buy connectors to hopfully get my stereo wired in.

My Speaker cables have these sorts on ends to them (the round bits, not the block):

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_212258_langId_-1_categoryId_165626#dtab

So I'm going to pick one of these up and hope they'll just plug right in. I may have to cut the block down as only the speaker part have those ends (hopfully they do one with just the speakers). The other side has the standard looking connector, so hopefully all will be well.

If I survive, I'll let you know how I get on!

Edited 21 June, 201016 yr by Tibbs

Well wish me luck - I'm off to Halfords to buy connectors to hopfully get my stereo wired in.

My Speaker cables have these sorts on ends to them (the round bits, not the block):

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_212258_langId_-1_categoryId_165626#dtab

So I'm going to pick one of these up and hope they'll just plug right in. I may have to cut the block down as only the speaker part have those ends (hopfully they do one with just the speakers). The other side has the standard looking connector, so hopefully all will be well.

If I survive, I'll let you know how I get on!

Those are just standard bullet connectors push together type jobby, shouldnt be too hard.

Ive done the following on my installs, it might not be right but its worked for me

Disconnect negative at the battery.

If your using connectors, make sure the colours correspond to the connector terminals (in the HU manual or on the casing somewhere)

Battery Live (usually thick red)

Battery Negative (usually thick black or multiple black wires going into single connector)\

Ignition Live (usually thick yellow)

Test the voltages using a multimeter first (red to black, and yellow to black ignition on/off)

Make sure all other terminals are not touching each other (if bare wire or connectors of course)

Reconnect negative and test if the HU comes on and also switches with the ignition. If stays on when ignition off, try swapping the battery live and ignition live around.

If all is good, disconnect the battery negative again.

Speaker wiring that I have seen usually comes in the form of pairs of 2 similar colours i.e. light grey and dark grey, etc.

Or in the form of solid and striped, i.e. green and green with stripe.

Connect one speaker at a time and test to find out which is which.

Might take a while, but its worth it and satisfying when it works.

If you need and help let us know

OK, well I bought the wrong bit - I got the wrong side of the attachment.

What I need is the other ISO conection to the one I have - I have the power one, but not the speaker one.

So if I buy this thing and cut it in half (I only need one of the ISO connectors) and put round ends on it (like my speaker wires have now) will that work?

This thing

Or this one may do the job for me?

is this one better?

My speaker wires seem to be joined up at the moment - I assume that I need to separate them and put them on their own connectors?

These are the photos I took, hopefully they explain what I'm on about

Speaker wires:

The connector I have and the connector I'm missing

What is the blue wire that's cut? Is it worth adding it back in?

Edited 21 June, 201016 yr by Tibbs

got a can o worms there aint ya.. small blue/white one could be the remote cable (amp/power), the other two cables joined together.. could be front and back L or R ones.. (so you get 2.0 instead of 4.0)

Best thing is to match colour for colour.. if its different the few basic things you'll get is:

live (red)

Ignition live (yellow)

[These two can be switched round on some cars which is a bit annoying, test before putting everything back in]

You'll have speaker LR, possibly front and back LR so that could b 4 of them (usually colour coded same)

Ground is normally black (maybe brown), multiple connections joined together.

As said above, connectors make no difference, so long as it touches each other, held securely then its all good.

Again, colours arent a given, but I would say the blue wire is power for the aerial. When the new stereo is connected, test the radio on all fm/am/mw, if you can get stations working no problem then I wouldnt worry about that, just cut any bare metal or wire from the tip and coil it, dont cut it back, you never know when youll need it.

And, yes cutting and crimping female bullet ends onto the plug you showed should work as long as the wires correspond to the head unit. The connectors are technically irrelevant, its all about the wires

Whichever step you take, make sure of voltages before you commit. The last thing you want to do is put 12v through a speaker.

Is the connector you have already wired up? I cant tell very well from the picture, but it looks like you still have the multi-coloured connector too. If the connector you have is wired OK you should be able to turn the stereo on. Just no sound yet.

If you only have 2 speaker connectors, you would need to seperate them FL,FR,RL,RR.

The other missing plug has 8 pins, basically 2 for each speaker.

Something to keep in mind though. If they were wired together that could mean they popped, as wiring speakers in parallel halves the resistance of them. For instance, if the front left and rear left speakers, both 4 ohms each, wired in parallel, the resitance of the speaker circuit would be 2 ohms, thus possible problems. Depending on how hard the system was driven. Usually its a problem for the amp, but can damage the speakers.

Edited 21 June, 201016 yr by Rhoobarb

Is the connector you have already wired up? I cant tell very well from the picture, but it looks like you still have the multi-coloured connector too. If the connector you have is wired OK you should be able to turn the stereo on. Just no sound yet.

Yes, the connector that is plugged in works. When I plug it in the stereo switches on and off, so that cable work fine. It's the speakers I need to sort out.

The car is an ex-Police Car, so I'd imagine the speakers were for their radio or whatever, and I doubt they were working it too hard, about the only part of the car that wasn't!

So what I'm going to do is separate out the speaker cables, making sure that I put the 2 cables currently on one female bullet connector onto 2 separate connectors, and the 2 males onto 2 male connectors. Do I then do the battery trick and find out which speakers are run off which cable? Since I have 4 cables are they individually linked to a speaker each, or does each pair of cables run the front and back speakers (or L & R)?

Separate all the wires. Each single speaker has 2 wires, positive and negative, so 4 speakers = 8 wires.

seperate all the wires from each other, use your multimeter on resistance (use beep if it has), put one probe on one wire and another probe on another, change one wire at a time till you get a beep. When it beeps or shows a resistance other than infinite you have both wires from 1 speaker. You can use the battery test, but again, it could pop the speaker, so make sure you keep you eye on the speaker and test it quick.

A battery pop test is a useful method of determining the polarity of speaker wires. To performing this test, you will need a 1.5 Volt battery ranging anywhere in size from AAA to D cell size.

Take one of the speaker wires and hold an exposed section of it to one end of the battery. Then take another speaker wire and tap it to the other end of the battery. You will know when you have the correct pair of speaker wires when you can hear a popping or static noise coming from the speaker.

In order to determine polarity you will need someone to help, and a flashlight. Have the other person look at that speaker using the flashlight (to see through the grill) while you perform the pop test again. This time, tap the second wire much slower, holding it to the second side of the battery for up to a couple of seconds at a time. The person helping you will be looking for the direction of movement of the speaker cone. If the speaker cone moves towards you, then the wire that is touching the positive end of the battery is the positive speaker wire. If the speaker cone moves away from you, then the speaker wire that is touching the positive end of the battery is the negative speaker wire.

rather than me typing it all out

The rest is then wiring the now identified speaker cables to the corresponding connectors

Good Luck

Edited 22 June, 201016 yr by Rhoobarb

Separate all the wires. Each single speaker has 2 wires, positive and negative, so 4 speakers = 8 wires.

seperate all the wires from each other, use your multimeter on resistance (use beep if it has), put one probe on one wire and another probe on another, change one wire at a time till you get a beep. When it beeps or shows a resistance other than infinite you have both wires from 1 speaker. You can use the battery test, but again, it could pop the speaker, so make sure you keep you eye on the speaker and test it quick.

<snip>

</snip>

rather than me typing it all out

The rest is then wiring the now identified speaker cables to the corresponding connectors

Good Luck

Hmm, It looks to me like I only have 4 wires, does that mean I have 4 more buried somewhere? The 4 wires in the picture above are the only ones I can really see. There are some buried at the back, but they look thicker so may be the wires that the police ran to their roof ariels.

I do have a multimeter somewhere I think, I'll have to see if I can find it. How do I know which cable is +ve and which -ve?

Edited 22 June, 201016 yr by Tibbs

Find out which 2 speakers those wires are first (if they are indeed the speaker wires). Test them and see what they are. They might not even be the speaker wires. The speaker wires may be the ones on the multicoloured block.

If you get those two working first you can then hunt for the rears.

It depends on how much the police hacked the wiring back and what they left or removed.

Apologies if we are going over old ground. With wiring thats been hacked and patched, its hard to tell whats what without being there :S

Edited 22 June, 201016 yr by Rhoobarb

Find out which 2 speakers those wires are first (if they are indeed the speaker wires). Test them and see what they are. They might not even be the speaker wires. The speaker wires may be the ones on the multicoloured block.

If you get those two working first you can then hunt for the rears.

It depends on how much the police hacked the wiring back and what they left or removed.

Apologies if we are going over old ground. With wiring thats been hacked and patched, its hard to tell whats what without being there :S

No, it's no problem - I'd rather go over it twice and get my head around it than once and get it wrong!

I'm 99% sure that they're speaker cables as I have the other block that's for power etc, and the 2nd one (the multicoloured block you refer to) is one that chicken_eyebrow identified as the CD changer cable.

I've ordered this block from ebay:

Male ISO to bullets ISO Lead Cable

Which should do the trick with regards to the speaker connections. I just need to furtle around and find the other cables.

Also I need to take apart the glovebox (which sounds easy) and the A pillar trim (how do I do that?) to route the gps aerial up into my roof. Is there a guide somewhere as to how to remove trim? I'll need to get my headlining down eventually to look at improving the job they did filling in the holes from the light bar on the roof.

Measure twice, cut once

That conector looks spot on for what you need.

Didnt realise you had a changer so logically, yes, that would be the changer cable.

As for trim and glovebox removal,etc. Not done it to an octy 1 so I think the octy 1 thread would be best for that. Some cars its easy, others its a pain.

It seems like your all ready to go, good luck hunting for the lost speakers. My bet (not gospel or experience with working with ex-police, just common sense I would say) would be the ones you have are the fronts which they used with the police radio (hence the parallel wired bullet connectors). It would be mono signal so no need to separate the wires and a police radio may handle the lesser resistance a lot better, or maybe even require it. For all that I cant believe they would waste time taking the whole of the rear speaker cables out, I would say they are coiled up and tucked away behind one of the numerous plastic bulges, pipes and supports that are within the dashboard internals, perhaps tie-wrapped up somewhere. A nice bright torch needed methinks

Your mission should you choose to accept it.....

Good Luck

Edited 22 June, 201016 yr by Rhoobarb

I'm rather looking forward to it tbh!

I used to have an old Land Rover 90TD that I did all the work on myself. I've gotten rather soft with company cars over the past 5 years or so, it feels good to get the tools out from under the stairs again! :p

I'll need to wait for the bits to arrive before i can work on it more. Hopefully everything will arrive next week so I can dedicate my Saturday to it!

Let us know how you get on when your bits arrive

Right - had a good Monday playing with the new connector box that arrived.

Got all the wires redone with bullets - had to put new bullets on the cable I ordered as they were too small for the other ones I bought from Halfords.

The speakers work, but I now have 2 issues. I don't have an aerial on the back of the car, and can't find a cable for it (is it that blue one that was cut anyone know?) I'm assuming it plugs into the HU somewhere but I can't see where.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how to fix the stereo in place. I bought a cage, which has the wrong fascia, but the metal cage itself seems to fit. However, I can't see how to attach the metal cage inside the plastic tunnel in the dash. Do I need to screw it in somehow? Any ideas?

I also have a couple of rails that came with the stereo, I assume I need to bolt those to the side of the stereo to fix it to the cage?

As ever, your help is much appreciated