Stereo change in my 93 SC - what wires do what.........

I'm back onto my stereo upgrade from standard tape player to Subaru double din cd/tape/radio. I fitted it few months back and since then have been having a battery drain over a few days so I took it all out again and will try again. The SC has the usual stereo type 2 plugs within the dash loom, but the stereo itself has a small 12wire plug the the back of it. I did try pulling what was connected to the standard type stereo plugs and fitted in the loom from the Scooby stereo, all worked but the dash clock stayed on all the time and like I said battery drained over 3 days.

I have removed that Scooby loom and reconnected the plugs within the dash, now I'm trying to work out what does what on this little stereo plug. I've used 12v tester and found grey with black stripe & blue with black stripe both have 12v to them, there doesn't seem to be an ignition live on the plug. I put the power probe clamp onto green with white stripe and tip onto the 12v wires and they lite up so green qith white stripe must be earth.

I'm left with pink with blue stripe,black with white stripe to suss out what they do. Also speaker wires, this plug has 7 ??? thinner wires, white, red, yellow, green, black, blue and brown all with grey/silver dab on them. Why 7, speakers need 8 for 4 speakers so don't understand that at all...........

I'm really hoping someone else has replaced their van standard stereo and can let me know what wires are doing what as everything on the net tells different to what I have

Maybe you can buy a converter plug for it if it is a common Toyota plug? To normal standard radio plug.

Speaker wires, I would just test them one by one.

Hiace4wd wrote:

Maybe you can buy a converter plug for it if it is a common Toyota plug? To normal standard radio plug.

Speaker wires, I would just test them one by one.

Hi mate, I tried that when 1st trial fitting it, looked everywhere on the net, radio specialists etc and nothing at all

It won't beat me, I'll get it fitted through this weird OE loom & plug, I have to now as I cut the plug off Sunday

mickB wrote:

Hiace4wd wrote:

Maybe you can buy a converter plug for it if it is a common Toyota plug? To normal standard radio plug.

Speaker wires, I would just test them one by one.

Hi mate, I tried that when 1st trial fitting it, looked everywhere on the net, radio specialists etc and nothing at all

It won't beat me, I'll get it fitted through this weird OE loom & plug, I have to now as I cut the plug off Sunday

I used a converter for a Toyota Yaris for my Hiace. Haven't completed the fitout yet but the converter is good and fits the van.

E.g: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toyota-Yaris-1999-ISO-Harness-Adaptor-Lead-Cable-Autoleads-Stereo-Radio-/331097428313

GPW wrote:

mickB wrote:

Hiace4wd wrote:

Maybe you can buy a converter plug for it if it is a common Toyota plug? To normal standard radio plug.

Speaker wires, I would just test them one by one.

Hi mate, I tried that when 1st trial fitting it, looked everywhere on the net, radio specialists etc and nothing at all

It won't beat me, I'll get it fitted through this weird OE loom & plug, I have to now as I cut the plug off Sunday

I used a converter for a Toyota Yaris for my Hiace. Haven't completed the fitout yet but the converter is good and fits the van.

E.g: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Toyota-Yaris-1999-ISO-Harness-Adaptor-Lead-Cable-Autoleads-Stereo-Radio-/331097428313

That's what I fitted, but I unplugged what was plugged in and fitted the iso loom, that's when battery drain started so trying to work out what Toyota have done sending the loom upto the stereo

I'd advise you buy a cheap 'clamp current meter' like I did from eBay.

You can then clamp it around the radio wire one-by-one until you discover which wire is drawing the current. Then you can lookup the wiring for the radio's plug and work out what it's for and move/cut it like that.

well more googling has produced some success, it appears Toyota had various radio plug configurations dependant on what extras were fitted, ie amplifier, voice control, etc etc, mine is a 14 point plug which seems to have a single speaker earth along with the 4 speaker positive wires, so far all good apart from 2 wires are can't work out as colour different to the net image but I'll go with what the net image says the location is for.......will let you know how it goes

mickB wrote:

a single speaker earth along with the 4 speaker positive wires

My old BMW was like this, I had to run new speaker wires.

Modern car stereos have both outputs 'live' - i..e you have 8 live outputs.
Connect any two of those 8 wires together gives a short fault.

You can't use that speaker wiring with any modern radio.

GPW wrote:

mickB wrote:

a single speaker earth along with the 4 speaker positive wires

My old BMW was like this, I had to run new speaker wires.

Modern car stereos have both outputs 'live' - i..e you have 8 live outputs.
Connect any two of those 8 wires together gives a short fault.

You can't use that speaker wiring with any modern radio.

You're dead right mate, I've sorted power to the stereo and tried a speaker wire with the scooby speaker negative to what I think is the Toyota common speaker earth and got nowt, so run some speaker wire to a spare speaker and it works so need to decide whether to rewire speakers or fit a sub and a couple of 6x9's instead

Option 2:

The other option is to ignore the rear speaker outputs on the radio so you are down to 4 live wires.
Then connect the left wires to the left van live1 and live2, and similarly with the right.

I.e:
Don't connect _anything_ to the common speaker earths (which leaves you with 4 lives) from the van, live left front, live left back, live right front, live right back. Then connect these 4 wires to the 4 live front radio wires.

You'll get a 1/4 power this way (50W -> 12.5W) but the radio will be happy and you'll get some sound from the system without rewiring. It does required butchering the Yaris connector but they are cheap.

GPW wrote:

Option 2:

The other option is to ignore the rear speaker outputs on the radio so you are down to 4 live wires.
Then connect the left wires to the left van live1 and live2, and similarly with the right.

I.e:
Don't connect _anything_ to the common speaker earths (which leaves you with 4 lives) from the van, live left front, live left back, live right front, live right back. Then connect these 4 wires to the 4 live front radio wires.

You'll get a 1/4 power this way (50W -> 12.5W) but the radio will be happy and you'll get some sound from the system without rewiring. It does required butchering the Yaris connector but they are cheap.

gotchya I'll give that a bash Ta

Interesting thing happened Tuesday, jumped in the van started it, put the stereo on then the lights, putting the lights on killed the stereo???
I must have used some sort of light display power of t by e Toyota loom to power the stereo,
I've decided to wire in the stereo using a probe and take feeds of the wires I need rather than try and use the stereo wires Toyota did

mickB wrote:

Interesting thing happened Tuesday, jumped in the van started it, put the stereo on then the lights, putting the lights on killed the stereo???
I must have used some sort of light display power of t by e Toyota loom to power the stereo,
I've decided to wire in the stereo using a probe and take feeds of the wires I need rather than try and use the stereo wires Toyota did

Did the speaker wiring I suggested work Ok?

Most stereos have a 'lights on' wire for the radio to dim it's own lights or light up the switches in concert with the dash. Maybe that wire isn't connected up correctly?

There should still be a fixed/permanent live to the stereo somewhere, and an ignition 'accessory' switched live too.

GPW wrote:

mickB wrote:

Interesting thing happened Tuesday, jumped in the van started it, put the stereo on then the lights, putting the lights on killed the stereo???
I must have used some sort of light display power of t by e Toyota loom to power the stereo,
I've decided to wire in the stereo using a probe and take feeds of the wires I need rather than try and use the stereo wires Toyota did

Did the speaker wiring I suggested work Ok?

Most stereos have a 'lights on' wire for the radio to dim it's own lights or light up the switches in concert with the dash. Maybe that wire isn't connected up correctly?

There should still be a fixed/permanent live to the stereo somewhere, and an ignition 'accessory' switched live too.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm thinking of ditching the standard speakers and wiring in an amp and some additional speakers instead, maybe in a box with a sub behind the back seats.........still a bot racer at heart lol

The standard speaker positioning is, in HiFi terms, 'very poor'.

I suspect some satellite speakers + a sub would sound far better. When I build my 'pod' I'll leave space to pop some car speakers in - or use satteltes and the pod as a sub box.

What I do have is a proper home HiFi set up that the cd/dvd unit is knackered, the inclosed sub us satellite speakers are sat doing nowt, I do know home HiFi is 8ohm and car 12v stuff is 4 ohm but it could work

mickB wrote:

I do know home HiFi is 8ohm and car 12v stuff is 4 ohm but it could work

That's just the speakers, 4ohm is a better fit to 12V amps.
Has the sub got it's own amp?

You may be best off buying a classD amp to power it, via a DC-DC converter.
I'll probably go with a modded class D for any cabin HiFi, the car radio will just be for driving.