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Claydogh Samba Member
Joined: June 12, 2020 Posts: 81 Location: NY
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 12:04 pm Post subject: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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Hey folks! This week my van passed inspection! Thats the first time in over 10 years (that I know of!) and I am so pleased to bring an old van back into the world.
Now I'm having "fun" and repairing that huge list of "little problems" and "gremlins". I needed a break from underbody work so I found an old little 411 radio at the junkyard and figured i'd try to install it. For the first time I took a look at this rats nest, a vanagon common occurrence I am finding.
So it is a 1981 AC Vanagon, and even looking through the Bently all the wires are different, and in the other manual it Doesn't really have anything about the radio at all.
Can anyone use their infinite wisdom to help me decipher this? Appreciate any help you can give! |
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ALIKA T3 Samba Member
Joined: July 30, 2009 Posts: 6360 Location: Honolulu,Hawaii and France
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 12:36 pm Post subject: Re: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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It's very simple, you just gotta follow basics and logic.
It's my favorite job for customers to fix rats nests.
I just swapped a 1985 manual transmission wiring harness into a 1982 automatic aircooled last week.
The blue wires and that brown wire in you hand are not factory, you'll have to trace them to see if they are connected to factory speaker wires or what,
but best is to start from the doors for that, then see what's left .
The cigarette lighter power (red) and ground (light brown) are daisy chained off the radio, so go back upstream from the cigarette lighter wire and follow them towards the fuse panel to find where the butchery happened. The cigarette lighters are rarely tampered with.
Some speaker wires are brown with a white tracer, that's not to be confused with chassis ground for the radio power. (red wire and brown wire)
As for the speakers, open the glove box or take it out, check the right door, you'll find the speaker wires coming out of it, see the original colors, follow them toward the radio to see if/where they have been cut/modified.
Same with driver door. _________________ Silicone Steering Boots and 930 Cv boots for sale in the classifieds.
Syncro transmission upgrade parts in the Classifieds.
Subaru EJ22+UN1 5 speed transmission
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=416343
Syncro http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4...num+gadget |
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Mateo83 Samba Member
Joined: September 14, 2021 Posts: 606 Location: Lodi, CA
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 12:47 pm Post subject: Re: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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As long as you can find the 12v constant power and pull acc from the ignition. I pulled new wires for the new speakers and back up camera _________________ 83 Air-cooled 2.0 Tin Top |
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djkeev Samba Moderator
Joined: September 30, 2007 Posts: 32625 Location: Reading Pennsylvania
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Pchill2 Samba Member
Joined: November 19, 2021 Posts: 405 Location: Georgia
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 1:10 pm Post subject: Re: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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The factory connector can be purchased new with pins. I purchased one from here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303595280111
Crutchfield also sells adapter harness from the OEM plug to an aftermarket head unit so you don't have to splice everything like the PO did. _________________ 87 Syncro Westy
Honda K24 swap |
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ALIKA T3 Samba Member
Joined: July 30, 2009 Posts: 6360 Location: Honolulu,Hawaii and France
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 1:25 pm Post subject: Re: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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Pchill2 wrote: |
The factory connector can be purchased new with pins. I purchased one from here:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/303595280111
Crutchfield also sells adapter harness from the OEM plug to an aftermarket head unit so you don't have to splice everything like the PO did. |
That's for newer radios, older ones pre-1986 ish had a single white connector in the Vanagon
It all depends on what deck he's gonna install in the end, but I bet the VW 411 radio must be even a different connector than the early Vanagons.... _________________ Silicone Steering Boots and 930 Cv boots for sale in the classifieds.
Syncro transmission upgrade parts in the Classifieds.
Subaru EJ22+UN1 5 speed transmission
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=416343
Syncro http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4...num+gadget |
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Honuak Samba Member
Joined: April 21, 2009 Posts: 521 Location: AK
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 1:51 pm Post subject: Re: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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Excellent opprotunity to get a multimeter if you dont already have one. You can trace and isolate every wire, find your grounds and hot leads. 12V DC isnt to tough usually. |
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borninabus Samba R&D Dept.
Joined: May 18, 2006 Posts: 4539 Location: Arizona Highways
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Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2023 3:47 pm Post subject: Re: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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Honuak wrote: |
Excellent opprotunity to get a multimeter if you dont already have one. You can trace and isolate every wire, find your grounds and hot leads. 12V DC isnt to tough usually. |
this is the truth.
if you can gain a knowledge of what wires are supposed to be there and where they are supposed to go from the bentley diagram, then the colors are irrelevant except for tracing their physical path.
what is a 411 radio?
if it is an "old VW" radio why are you wasting your time installing it in your van? some of them are quite valuable to persons who want "the one" that their VW/Porsche/Opel/Whatever could have come with.
sell it and buy something modern for your ride _________________ 88 Van WBX, A/T - 13 JSW TDI 6M/T - 2012 Touareg TDI Sport |
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wbailey2112 Samba Member
Joined: October 02, 2015 Posts: 483 Location: Grove City, OH
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Posted: Thu Feb 02, 2023 7:48 am Post subject: Re: 1981 Vangon Radio Previous Owner Carnage. Help! |
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I'll post this once again. The search function would have found this for you.
taken from www.Vanagonauts.com
86 - 91 stereo wiring
stereo wiring colors
Year(s): 1986 - 1991
Model/Type: Vanagon
Power leads
Constant 12V+ -------- Red/White
Switched 12V+ -------- n/a
Ground ------------------ Brown
Illumination ------------ Gray/Blue
Dimmer ----------------- n/a
Front Speakers
Left Front (+) ----------- White/Black
Left Front (-) ------------ Brown/White
Right Front (+) --------- Green/Black
Right Front (-) ---------- Brown
Rear Speakers
Left Rear (+) ------------ White/Black
Left Rear (-) ------------- Brown/Black
Right Rear (+) ---------- Green/Black
Right Rear (-)------------ Brown
80 - 85 Vanagon
Red - Power (fuse 9)
Brown - Ground
Blue/Grey - Illumination. There are two wires, the wires are pigtailed at the radio (wire comes from behind the driver console, connects to the radio, then goes onto the illumination light for the 12v accessory/cigarette lighter)
Red/Brown - Right front speaker (+)
Brown - Right front speaker (-)
Red/Brown - Left front speaker (+)
Brown - Left front speaker (-)
Note: the wires for the left and right front speakers are bonded together similar to home stereo wiring
Blue - Left rear speaker (+)
Red - Right rear speaker (+)
Grey - Left and Right rear speaker (-)
Note: the rear speaker harness contains only 3 wires - shared left and right rear speaker (-) _________________ '74 Thing
'83 Westfalia |
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ALIKA T3 Samba Member
Joined: July 30, 2009 Posts: 6360 Location: Honolulu,Hawaii and France
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