E30 Zone

I fitted an original Pioneer radio casette unit(the removable unit with the handle on the front) in my iS to replace the sh*t aftermarket clarion unit that was there, but hooked it up using crimped connectors as there is no connector socket(such as an ISO connector) at the back of the unit, just wires.
Does anyone know how these units are wired in? I'm thinking of wiring an ISO connector to the back of the unit and wire one into the car's harness, but would like to connect as per original fitting.

Funnily enough I've just removed the Pioneer stereo from my 318iS today. The stereo should have a cage with a connector built in like this:



This allows you to remove the stereo without needing to disconnect the connector each time. I'll be fitting my old Pioneer into my dad's cabby, but if his already has a similar cage, I may be able to give you my old cage which would make fitting a lot easier.

Yes, my Pioneer stereo has this cage also, but at the back of the cage there is no connector to connect it to the car's wiring. Is there any connectors at the back of the cage on your system?

At the back of the cage, all of the cables were then wired into the car with crimp connectors and a couple of in-line fuses for the power antennae and such.

It was quite tidy, but my brother and I decided to wire in a Euro connector at the back of the stereo. That way it is much easier to change the stereo in future.

I originally wired my unit in with crimped connectors also, but am planning to wire in using ISO connectors. Think you can get the empty male and female connector blocks along with the associated spade connectors on eBay so you can crimp directly to the car and stereo wiring rather than using ISO connector blocks that have wires coming from them.

The Pioneer stereo unit I have also doesn't have any separate wires for the -ve speaker wires at the back of the cage. I connected them together and then onto the -ve terminal at the back of the cage. Does your system have a more elegant solution than this? Don't think there is any better way to do it.

You can get ISO and Euro connectors at Halfords but you may need to cut off one connector and splice the wires together. When we pulled out the original stereo I think that the +ve and -ve speaker cables were simply crimped together into a single connector which was attached to a single cable from the stereo. It's not particularly elegant, but if done carefully and neatly it should work perfectly.

Thanks for the info, I'm going to try to get the ISO connectors I saw on eBay in the new year, if I can find the link again!

When the E30 was new, ISO Connectors didn't exist! They were DIN connectors then,



You can use an ISO if you want but you may find that you need to join some wires together as some older systems used a common -ve for the speakers.

Back in the day that these were fitted by the Dealer/ICE Shops, they would have used through crimp's or bullet connectors

For those with no fader, a fader switch was fitted near the Hazard switch

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BMW-E24-E28-E30-3 ... 3a5618733b

Yes, the Pioneer system has common -ve for the speakers, but I'm going to fit the ISO connectors, so if I have to replace the unit with a more modern one in the future, I won't have the hassle of re-wiring again, just plug and play.

Just a tip, sorry if it seems obvious, bridge the speaker commons on the headunit side of the ISO so if you put a newer stereo in then you won't have to alter the wiring!

Thats what I was planning to do, I'm going to link the wires between the common terminals, thats why I plan on getting the empty ISO connector blocks and the terminals that I can crimp myself. Should work out OK. If I remember, I'll post a couple of pics.