When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I’m trying to put this after market radio in but I can’t seem to find which wire is power and how to get to the speaker wires.
From what I’ve read the The black cable in the first picture is an alpine audio interface that connects to the amplifier and are the speaker wires but the aftermarket radio doesn’t have a plug for that. Should I buy an adapter or pull the wires from somewhere else in the car?
And as for the power what power cables should be connected. The diagrams on ALLDATA are not useful.
No use to your thread, but so that's where the amp fits. Same place as the sat-nav DVD, I wonder if that means you couldn't choose both when ordering these cars?
The black cable is fibre-optic and it is only for the communication (digital) with the CD changer. All speaker wires go from the Amplifier (in the boot) to each speaker so you would need to extend them from the boot to your new radio. See the attached radio diagram for the +12V and ground wires as well as for the speaker wires identification (the diagram is for 1999 but 1998 is same). I have also attached a file containing the list of wire colour codes.
Would it be better to run the wires from amp to the new head unit and bypass the amp all together since the speakers will be getting power from the aftermarket unit? Or splice the wires coming from an and b pillars and run directly to the radio.
You probably have to exclude the Amp since you may not be able to "mate" your aftermarket radio with the Amp (unless someone knows that this can be done and how).
As to bringing the speaker wires to the aftermarket radio, you can do it either way you mentioned. One thing is that you will have to connect the A-pillar tweeter in parallel to the front door speaker. For this, you will need to add an in-line electrolytic capacitor to the positive wire of the A-pillar tweeter. This capacitor is usually 4.7 or 6.8 uF but you can also check what capacitor is used on the rear door tweeter (see pic below) and use the same value for your A-pillar tweeter. With inserted in-line capacitor, you should connect the negative tweeter wire to the positive door speaker wire and positive tweeter wire to the negative door speaker wire. The in-line capacitor can be inserted anywhere in the line to the A-pillar tweeter, not necessarily at the tweeter. You will lose the sub-woofer unless your aftermarket radio has a separate output for a sub-woofer.
1998 XJR Aftermarket Radio Wiring
