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Mon Nov 24, 2014 3:41 pm

I'm planning on rewiring the front and rear speakers in my van to replace the corroded and possibly breaking wires in my door and rear to hopefully increase the sound quality in my speakers.

What I was wondering is, where exactly do the speaker wires go to the back speakers in an AC equipped Carat? Would it be easy to tape the old wire to the new and pull it through or is it going to be a PITA?

Also, as far as connecting it to the head unit itself, will I need to chop off the old wires from the harness and splice the new ones? I know that they connect through that brown DIN connector on the back, I was wondering if anyone knew of a better way other than slicing up the wiring harness. I have no idea where you can even get replacements for those tiny pins in there.

Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:13 pm

I can't help you with your Carat question, but gowesty sells a stereo wiring harness adapter. Just plug in the adapter and splice onto the adapter wires. No cutting of factory wires is necessary.

http://www.gowesty.com/ec_view_details.php?id=4297&category_id=&category_parent_id=

Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:28 pm

you could either tap to old wires with new ones and pull thru...

or just forget it and add new thicker wires... either or will work fine...

Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:42 pm

The stock rear "pod” speakers need to be rewired for independent grounding to run modern sound systems. That means two-wire all the way to the back.

For the front I ran #10 flexible speaker wire through the air duct and up to the speakers. You have to drill a hole to run it through and seal the hole.

Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:55 pm

The rear speak wires run up the roof pillar to the rear. Not likely you
can pull thru new wire attached to the old. These wires almost never go bad.
They are well sheltered from the environment. Now if you have a 86 or
older model these speaker wires had a common ground. This will not work
with most current radios today. So you are going to have to come up
with a plan ether way. I've seen these wires butcher in every way you can come up with, except doing the job right and removing the headliner. I
see you have a 91 model in your sig. IF this is the van leave well enough
alone.

Tue Nov 25, 2014 12:51 pm

1vw4x4 wrote: The rear speak wires run up the roof pillar to the rear. Not likely you
can pull thru new wire attached to the old. These wires almost never go bad.
They are well sheltered from the environment. Now if you have a 86 or
older model these speaker wires had a common ground. This will not work
with most current radios today. So you are going to have to come up
with a plan ether way. I've seen these wires butcher in every way you can come up with, except doing the job right and removing the headliner. I
see you have a 91 model in your sig. IF this is the van leave well enough
alone.

My fears have been confirmed. I think the wires are actually fine, I just wanted to run some higher-gauge and better quality speaker wire. Sounds like I might be better off just leaving the rear ones alone entirely. For some reason I had assumed they ran through the AC ducting somehow. I plan on putting this guy:

in place of the stock deck, its out of a '94 Jetta and still stock VAG equipment so it's a perfect fit with the added benefit of an aux-in port so the speaker grounding won't be an issue since it's still pretty old school. The only thing I could think of would be to run it through the AC ducts and down through the door pillar but that would be pretty ghetto and I don't like drilling holes through main structural supports.[/img]

Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:13 pm

Looks good. With this VW audio equipment the Gowesty wiring harness adapter that I recommended will be of NO use to you. Think of the savings!

Tue Nov 25, 2014 5:41 pm

One surefire way for you to upgrade your sound is ditch the crappy factory head unit (even that newer mk3 one you want to put it) and go with something from pioneer, alpine, kenwood, etc...even with the terrible sounding factory speakers your listening experience will be much improved with an aftermarket deck installed.

An aftermarket headunit and aftermarket speakers is the only way you are going to end up with a decent sounding stereo in a vanagon.

Wed Nov 26, 2014 11:17 am

greenraVR6 wrote: One surefire way for you to upgrade your sound is ditch the crappy factory head unit (even that newer mk3 one you want to put it) and go with something from pioneer, alpine, kenwood, etc...even with the terrible sounding factory speakers your listening experience will be much improved with an aftermarket deck installed.

An aftermarket headunit and aftermarket speakers is the only way you are going to end up with a decent sounding stereo in a vanagon.

Would adding a hidden amp serve a similar purpose without changing the head unit to a more modern one? I would totally go for something newer but my goal is to keep the dash looking as original as possible, I dig the 80's look with the square black plastic buttons and simple green LCD.