Bills are good for something. I was tired of messing with a BT FM adapter that worked sometimes and sometimes it didn’t, and even on a good day, I had static, so I broke down and bought a Kenwood stereo. Since I use my Visa for everything (including any bills that can be paid by Visa), I had amassed enough Amazon points that the stereo ended up costing me 71 cents in actual money. I emailed the details of our foray into Perfeshnl Stare-y-o Ahstallin to R, so rather than type another Wall O’ Text, I’ll copypasta….
Whew! That was an adventure! We started installing my stereo yesterday, and we’d done our research. We knew what size metric sockets we needed, and which bolts had to be removed to lift the dash and remove the trim around the stereo and instrument panel. We’d watched YouTube videos on how to get everything apart. Car manufacturers use whatever the hell coloured wires they want, so I had bought a mounting kit to fit my car, and it came with a wiring harness adapter so that the connector in the car would match up to the standard-coloured wires on the stereo’s wiring harness…so we thought.
I took off the dash and trim without too much trouble, and removed the old stereo. While I was doing that, P was wiring the adapter harness to the wiring harness for the stereo. I’ve never installed a car stereo before, and he has, so he volunteered to do the wiring. I got out my heat gun, and shrink tubing, because I trust that more than electrical tape, especially where there will be temperature extremes, like in a car in Illinois. He got it wired and got the shrink tubing on, it looked great, and we were all set to try it out. I plugged it in, and…nothing. No power, nothing. Well, fuck.
P had followed the wiring list that came with the adapter, so we thought that was okay, and perhaps the stereo was just dead. Doesn’t happen often, but does occasionally, and we couldn’t figure out what to do. Finally, I remembered that Roger used to use a car stereo running off a battery when he had no electricity in his little blue trailer. I didn’t remember how he’d done it, but I remembered that he did, so we went googling to learn how.
We wired the stereo directly to the battery, and it powered right on, no problem. Okay, so the stereo works. P was convinced that I’d got the wrong wiring harness adapter, but I KNEW I hadn’t because it fit perfectly, and all of the pins matched. He did some more googling, and came across a video on how to direct-wire a stereo without an adapter. No earthly way was I going to let him cut the plug off my car, but I was willing to sacrifice the old radio, which did work even if it had no fancy features. I cut the wires off, stripped half an inch at the end, separated them so they didn’t touch, and plugged into the car. With the ignition off, I used P’s multimeter to test the yellow wire, which was supposed to be 12v constant. Worked fine; 12v. Turned the ignition to Acc, and tested the red wire. Nothing. I knew that grey, white, and purple were speaker wires, so I tested some other colours. Lo and behold, the red AND WHITE wire was ignition/acc, not the red one as the diagram had said!
Once we figured that out, I tried the same test with the adapter I’d bought, and the red and white wire was indeed the correct one. We fixed up the wires (getting that shrink tubing off once it’s been heated is HARD!), and just slid the tubing on for a final test. Worked fine, and the radio had sound to both speakers. I don’t really know how to use it yet, so I didn’t know how to connect to my phone, and was going to try a CD, but we have only half a dozen actual music CDs, and I have no idea where they are. We settled for trusting that if the radio worked, everything else probably did, too.
I took the stereo back in the garage, and P shrunk the new tubing in place. Took it back out, connected it, checked again to make sure it worked, and then put the dash back together. I had put one of the screws back in, and then I thought, “Oh, goddamn it. I forgot the microphone!” The stereo came with a little omnidirectional mic for hands-free use. I never get calls, but I do need it for “Ok Google” in the car. Unfortunately…it plugs into the back of the stereo. Well, shit. I wasn’t about to tear the dash apart again last night, so I did it this morning. I mounted the mic up where my map lights are, then ran the cord under the edge of the headliner, under the trim, and in behind the instrument panel and into the stereo. It looks pretty good because all of the wire is hidden, and it works well.
So…we finally got my 71-cent Kenwood stereo installed, and I now have Bluetooth in the car that works reliably (at least so far). I use Android Auto so it can read my texts while I’m driving, and I can respond via voice. I play music, of course, and this is WAAAAAY more stereo than my little factory speakers can handle, but it’s not like I blast it anyway, so it’s fine. I’m very happy with it. Not bad for 71 cents!
Dash torn apart, and old radio removed.
Shiny new 71-cent Kenwood!
The car is mostly back together; I have a couple of PITA screws left to do, but wanted to make sure the mic and everything work well because those screws are a huge deal to get at, and the dash can’t be removed without their removal.
