Bypass 'premium' amp in boot.. 6 wires?

[Shedtastic]

Hi, I have a 1989 325iC. I just spent an evening trying to wire in a "Continental" branded headunit in an attempt to keep a nice older looking facia, but getting USB and Bluetooth.

FM-AM-Radio-with-USB-Bluetooth
https://www.continental-automotive.com/ ... -Bluetooth

I eventually untangled previous bodgery (so I could add my own) and was happy to not have to deal with the fader switch. (Not present)

But I got no sound out of the speakers until I reconnected the mysterious white wire that had been wired into the switched 12v. I thought it was for the antenna (which is stuck, so I didn't bother reconnecting it) but it turns out it was for the amplifier bolted in the boot. Never realized there was one.

So it seems the speaker outputs from the head unit are going into the amp, and it sounds cack at anything over 10% volume.

Some searching showed that it can all be bypassed, but the only advice I could find seemed to relate to a set-up that had different wiring than mine.

This link gives a simple guide on which wires to match up:
https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showth ... p?t=191119

but I don't have all those..

Of the list:

Aftermarket-----------Dash Wires-----------Speaker Wires

RF+ Grey--------------Blue/Red-------------Grey/White
RF- Grey/Black--------Brown/Orange--------Grey/Brown

LF+ White------------Yellow/Red------------Grey/Red
LF- White/Black-------Brown/Orange--------Grey/Violet

RR+ Violet------------Blue/Black------------Black/White
RR- Violet/Black-------Brown/Orange--------Black/Brown

LR+ Green------------Yellow/Black----------Black/Red
LR- Green/Black-------Brown/Orange--------Black/Violet


(I have the wires in bold, but not the italics..)

I've then got a red/white, red/black, white (I guess the amp signal to switch on) and brown.

The implication is that somewhere between the head unit (where each speaker had it's own dedicated -ve) and the rear of the car, all the -ve wires got combined to one common -ve?

Rather than cut the plug off in the boot (and then be forced to do a bunch of soldering bent over in a confined space), I cut the old amp apart and thought I'd hack out the piece that the harness plugs into and solder the jumpers needed onto the back..

https://get.google.com/albumarchive/106 ... y-r0ntXaNA

Sorry, don't get how to embed the image.

So do I just join all the speaker -ve wires to the one earth? Brown?

Any Idea what the red/white was for?

Thanks,

Neil.

[Shedtastic]

Okay - So certainly connecting
Blue/Black to Black/White, and
Brown/black (not the thick brown one..) to Black/Brown...... resulted in nice quality sound from the Right rear speaker. So I shall assume I need to connect the Brown / black to all the speaker -ve connections..

But It's cold in the garage so that will have to wait a while.

[paultv]

Did you get your Continental working properly, and how is it? I'm thinking of fitting one in my cabby but I'm a bit concerned about lack of face off, but maybe no longer a worry these days as the radio is so cheap, easier to nick the whole car.

Paul

[clipper]

Sorry to turn this into a thread about Continental radios, but did either of you buy one / use one?

What the general consensus? Any good?

[Shedtastic]

Sorry Paultv, clipper, I've not touched the car (or therefore the radio) since that last post.

I will endeavor to crack on with it, since the sun has definitely come out now..

[clipper]

No worries.

Buying a new stereo is plan B anyway for me. I've been trying to "learn" how to add a line in to old stereos for the past few months and have bought a few old Blaupunkts to experiment with. This is my preferred option, but when I'm struggling and can't see a way forward I start browsing ebay for new stuff!