My (new to me) 94 XJS has a dead radio. I pulled the radio and I have power at the plug, but the radio does nothing. I assume the radio needs replacing. I would love to replace with original, but that seems to be cost prohibitive.

If I buy a modern one, what problems will I have? Will the antennae still operate? Will there be a wiring harness problem. Is there a harness adapter available. I assume I will have to probably hard wire speakers. I have the wiring diagram.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated...Jimmy

 

As far as I recall it is a straight swap, all the connectors are there so it is just plug and play.
It might be worth seeing if you can borrow one just to make sure that it all works first.

 

So your saying the power connector and speaker on a new radio is the same as the old 1994 original?

Borrow one?

Thanks...Jimmy

 

I think so, I'm pretty sure it was a straight swap, all the connector plugs were there.
As for 'borrowing' one I usually have a couple lying around that I have swapped and not gotten around to dumping yet.
I equally vaguely recall that the Jag set had it's own built in fuse; assuming that is the case have you checked that?

 

I opened it up, but didn't see a fuse.

 

If you have power at the supply then there should be no reason why a new unit shouldn't work but trying a known good unit would confirm that everything is functioning correctly before you spend lots of money.

 

Do you have power on BOTH the of the power wires? One will be battery live from fuse and another on with ignition.
Just a thought, would hate to see a good radio tossed.

 

I have power at both. The radio does nothing, not a crackle out of her. I may put a power supply on the radio at the workbench to see what happens.

Radios are inexpensive, I was just wondering about the hook up and the power antennae.

Thanks...Jimmy

 

If the radio is totally dead you could check that you also have an earth.

If you replace it, the power antenna is not a problem, its only looking for a 12V signal from the radio , which is a standard lead on even the cheapest head units these days. The wonders of Lucas back at the antenna will do the rest, most of the time.

If you are not familiar with sorting out the radio wiring , this page has a good guide

http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/....asp?tid=74637

 

The new radio (a Pioneer) is in and works fine....Except I ended up with two extra wires in the Jag's wiring harness. The red and white which is for "interior lighting system" which I assume is for dimming. The other is a gray wire and I have not been able to find out what it is. It is not in any of the wiring diagrams that I have seen. So I'll just tape off both of those.

...Jimmy

 

I'm glad that you've resolved the radio issue. You're much better off with an after market radio for several reasons, depending on the features that the radio offers. One of the best features on newer radios is the USB option because it renders the stock CD changer obsolete.

The humble CD changer can give you only six CD's to play without having to reload it and a USB flash memory? Well, just yesterday I loaded a 16 GB USB stick with, get this: all 24 of Verdi's operas (around 55 CD's using 5 GB) and all 12 of Puccini's operas (22 CD's using 2 GB) for a total of around 7 GB and room left to load up all of Wagner and whatever else. This is a 16 GB stick that you can get nowadays for about $10.00. I believe that a spare (empty, of course) six CD magazine is more money than the memory stick.

Of course that there are other options using your smart phone to load up music, as well. The sky is the limit anymore.

Please, post a pic of how your new Pioneer looks on your dash.
Thank you and regards,

 

It's a good idea to splice the light cable into the light circuit, it should already be there. The radio can be quite bright at night.

 

The lighting wire has no connection on the new radio. The radio does light up and has it's own dimmer.
...Jimmy

 

Here's the pic...sounds awsome, antenna works perfectly.