Stereo Wiring

[jacob.]

1985 Vanagon 1.9L (upgraded to 2.5 subi)

I've searched this topic and see it gets beaten to death 10 times over. I still feel the need to post this. I bought my van with no radio, just a stock looking plastic cover for the hole. I pulled all the wiring out and found this mess. First thing I noticed is I don't have the two plugs other vans have, one brown and one black.

These plugs:

I had a plug for the cigarette lighter that I cut off and wired female spade connectors to.

I also have this weird plug that I can't seem to find a picture of in any other stereo wiring plug on this forum.

That plug has a red wire just shoved into the other side of it. Don't know why it is there.

I pulled that red wire out. That wire runs down to this plug with several other wires. The red wire has an inline fuse.

There's also this wire coming from the speaker on the passenger door, running behind the glove box. Not sure why it's cut.

I can figure out which colored wires are supposed to do what based on this quote from vanagonauts.

[sciroccojim]

The connector at the end of the red wire is the end of the harness of an old (80s), relatively cheap aftermarket radio.

The white plug you have there looks like an older factory one. The only connections you really need to concern yourself with are:

Red - constant power
Brown - ground

The gray/blue wire is dimmed illumination (from the headlight switch) and isn't needed unless your new radio has an illumination connection. Even then, it's not required.

Pretty much all modern radios have a constant power connection, accessory/ignition switched power and ground and assume that you'll be wiring them so they go off when the key is turned off. Vanagon switches don't have an accessory position, so switched power means that you have to have the ignition switch on all the time to run the radio. You can just connect both the switched and constant radio power connections to that red wire but most radios will end up drawing a few hundred milliamps all the time, which will kill your battery over the course of a bunch of days. In order to deal with this, you can either (a) unlatch your radio's removable face whenever you're not using it or (b) wire up a switch somewhere, which you can use to toggle power to the radio's switched power lead.

As far as the speakers go, don't trust that the car matches the diagram. Incorrect polarity, while harmless, will cause your speakers to be out of phase, meaning the cones don't all move in the same direction with each pulse of bass. What this means is that your already wimpy little speakers will have EVEN LESS bass, due to phase cancellation.

On the speakers, the positive terminal is usually larger, and/or has a "+" stamped somewhere or a red dot.
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1987 Westy Camper

[wesitarz]

I downloaded these for reference. I don't recall what year Westy refers to but likely 86-91.

[Tom Powell]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Car-CD-Radio-Audio....47.utTldt

Aloha
tp

[jacob.]

[ungroov]

sciroccojim: many thanks for the key to the problem! the simple solution! ...

i wire my stereo deck so that i can turn it on and listen to tunes without the key in the ignition. its crucial for camping. (just join the red and yellow wires from the back of the stereo deck, and connect them both to aux battery 12V positive terminal for power.)

but, my new stereo deck was slowly draining my battery over several days of non-use and i was looking into a wiring setup to disallow said drain. and you provided it: simply click the button on the stereo deck removable faceplate to unlatch the faceplate. the faceplate still sits in place but unlatched (slightly loose), and the battery stays constant at 13.2V after several days in the garage. many thanks mane!

[sciroccojim]

You're welcome. Enjoy!
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1987 Westy Camper