Car stereo grrrr.

[Sancho]

When I bought my Mazda the guy said that the stereo was broken. Today, I went and bought a cheapo replacement and pulled the old one out. It turns out that 'broken' means 'I have taken the harness out'.

There are block connectors there, but they don't fit the harness that came with the stereo. This is what I've got:



The thick black one I know is the aerial. The weird thin black one is a mystery to me. I am a bit stuck on the others too iknow it used to have a CD changer and I found a big connector in the boot with a load of wires in it. Presumably, if these wires match the colours on one of the blocks in the dash that's all sorted and I should just shove that one back down the hole. I also found the wires to the rear speakers, which are green and match those on the block on the right hand side - so I figure that's what that one is.

My plan is: ignore the block that matches the one in the boot (assuming it does), ignore the weird black thing and plug the aerial in. That leaves me with one block (probably the blue one, I think). None of the colours on it match up to the ones on the harness that came with the stereo. Any clues on what to do here, is there a standard adaptor or something?

Thanks.

[darkdezigns]

arent they iso connectors?>

[darkdezigns]

just reread yr post,best bet is get stormy for instance to cut out stereo wiring before iso's ,solder to your wiring,its obviously been played with,not difficult to figure wot does wot tho

[Predictable Bob]

I hate to say it but you could try Halfrauds cos they carry loads of adaptors .......

[POPEYE]

You'll need to find the pinout diags for your model car, (on line, install doctor or similar) then check those against the connectors in the pic, if one or more tally up with the diag then you may be able to get an ISO lead and it's sorted,
if you cant find a pinout diag then its trial and error with a test light and circuit tester i'm afraid, are the speakers in place already? dont forget the speaker wires have pos and neg to each speaker and must be connected with the polarity the right way round,
speaker wires traced you should then have a ign feed, and battery "live all the time" feed, a neg wire, possibly an electric aeriel feed, an amp feed,
i take it the blocks in the pic are stock harness ones and not "add ons"?

[Sancho]

Right, all (kind of) sorted now. The wires in one block did match the one in the boot, so that's out of the equation. That left me two, and it seems there is a standard ISO adaptor for that model that makes everything sensible again. Provided it hasn't been messed around with, I should be OK.

Don't know why the guy told me that the stereo was broken though. If he said 'it needs a 15 quid adaptor' I would still have bought it.

Thanks for the help guys.