Topic: New radio, speakers, and their wiring

[Schroeder]

Aftermarket radio's have proprietary harnesses that plug into the back of then. The old days we would hack up the factory harness and use twist caps to connect the appropriate wires. The past 10-20 years the trend is to use a special pigtail harness to bridge that gap between the factory harness and the proprietary harness from the back of a modern receiver.

Search eBay or Amazon for Scosche GM01B, it's a harness for 1978 -1987 General Motors Radios. It will come with two pigtails, the smaller one does not apply, it taps into a separate factory harness that provides power for the clock, which 78-79 was not wired for. I'm going to guess that this may be what you got from Ames as well, if you have the Ames part number that tell us what harness it is.

You also need the proprietary pigtail harness that plugs into your aftermarket receiver. If you purchased your receiver new, it will be in the box. It should have instructions what wire goes to what speaker, power, etc...

I still use twist caps for these application specifically, but more and more I see folks either solder or use butt connecters, which would be an improvement.

I will be wiring up mine in a couple weeks and can take some pictures if that help.

THANK YOU ANGELO!  THAT'S what I was looking for.  I know that I simply connect the open ends from the scosche part to the open ends on the back of my receiver.  I have done a few radios.  I just needed to locate the adapter that plugs into the under dash harness.  THANKS!

btw, I did not get anything from Ames.  I just called to confirm that a 78 harness would mount into my 77 and match up with everything.  They said it would.  Any extra crap such as some heater indicator switch can just be left hanging open on the harness. 

I had to get a new harness and decided to go with a 78 because I knew I could get one of these adapters and plug it straight into the harness.  They do not make these plugs for anything older than 78 I guess :-/

[Angelo]

just a heads up, the under dash harness will only give you 4 of the 12 connections (the power, ground, power antenna). There are 2 more factory harnesses for the speakers (I think they are white and blue), I personally would just use your own speaker wire than buy a factory set, especially if you don't have an 80/81 dash the front speaker wire harness will not help you either.

Just to throw a wrench into this, you can get a reverse harness set as well, I got one just to restore the factory harness, guy who had my car previously cut up the factory harness. You could use the parts to the reverse harness set just for the speakers, to use your own speaker wires.

[ponchonutty]

http://metraonline.com/part/72-4500 

That's the Metra speaker harness adaptor so you don't have to cut the ends off the wires.  Also, they will be correct as far as + and -.  If you already hacked them off, light colored wires in the front is +.  Darker colored wires are + in the rear.  You can also grab 12v battery from the cig. lighter since you are close to it anyways or run a wire to the fusebox.

[ponchonutty]

[Gold79ta]

I bought my harness from Walmart.

[Angelo]

Here are pics of the speaker harnesses, tied to my receiver harness. The SMP pigtails are available from RockAuto, there are cheaper versions of these on ebay, I think the SMP versions are a little better quality as far as the harness themselves.



How the reverse harnesses plug into the scosche harness


I got Rockford Fosgate 6x9 speakers for the rear, I'm using their provided grills. I bought #6 - 32 screws 2" in length for the speakers, it gave me plenty of length after mounting the speakers under the package tray to then install the baffles I bought followed by another washer and nut. I pre-poked the holes in the baffles using the speaker grill before installing. The nuts holding the baffles under the speakers are finger tight. The nuts holding the speaker from underneath were tightened with a nut driver.



Hope this helps folks.

[Greenbird76]

I did the same thing as Angelo did, using the same baffles and the long screws.  However, I flush mounted the speakers to the package tray mounting metal inside my trunk and did not have to use speaker grills due to the design of the REM deluxe tray.  (Actually I goofed and installed the new package tray first and had to do every thing from inside the trunk without drilling through the new tray- it stunk!! )

[Angelo]

Nice! You could most likely use #8 screws instead of #6 then, I had to use #6 as the heads of the screws just fit in the Rockford Fosgate grills. My package tray was already cut by the previous owner for speakers, and I kind of like the RF grills, they don't look like a rocket ship or toy like some of those other brand speaker grills.

Those baffles are easy to work with too, if you leave enough screw stud you can always add them later.

I also used 84-89 Ford speaker harnesses and reverse harnesses so I could easily plug/unplug the rear speakers. No one sells GM reverse speaker harnesses . Makes it easier to get the speaker in/out without plugging the wire connectors directly on the speakers.

[oldskoolubr]

I bought the exact fit one Angelo, I know right about 1980 everything was becoming available.   Lots of stuff from Metra and Scoshe as GoldTA said some are even available at Walmart!  I personally replaced all the speaker wire, because of age and quality of wiring.  BTW Angelo did you get those Blinker Greens Handled?  PM Me I don't want to thread Jack!

[Angelo]

I should have replaced the wiring, but it looked fine so I just added harnesses where the previous owner hacked it up. I tested the stereo over the weekend, sounds awesome, so I'm not worried about the wiring. I'm more concerned about my soldering than the 35 year old wire.

I got video testing out the stereo on my Google Drive, if you wanna see it PM me your Gmail address, I'll share it out.

I'm getting the whole bezel redone now, will keep you posted. Thanks!

[oldskoolubr]

Cool Beans!

[ponchonutty]

Looks good.  FYI those SMP pigtails use to be made by Metra.  They've changed to a newer design that has all pigtails put together and costs about half the price and still works with OEM radios.
http://metraonline.com/part/71-1677-1

[Schroeder]

Looks good.  FYI those SMP pigtails use to be made by Metra.  They've changed to a newer design that has all pigtails put together and costs about half the price and still works with OEM radios.
http://metraonline.com/part/71-1677-1

I saw that pigtail but thought there was benefit in being able to split all the pig tails up because some of the wires kinds come from different areas in the car and harness.  I thought the separate tails might be better.

[Angelo]

Schroeder, GM thought the same thing, it does make it easier if you have to take one of the harnesses out.

[Schroeder]

Schroeder, GM thought the same thing, it does make it easier if you have to take one of the harnesses out.

Turns out that the people on ebay sent me the single pigtail instead of the three separate ones that you and I discussed and what were pictured -_-  I don't think I'm gonna raise to much grief because I want to get this stuff all in, but I was upset.  I was looking at these pig tails....do I have to piggy back the ignition wire off the ignition harness somehow?  Is there a guide for dummies on the hooking up the harness out of the receiver? ^_^;