Installing CD player in Sprinter

[Rossluck]

We bought our son a CD player for his '95 Toyota Sprinter and decided to spend a few hours installing it. It turned into a nightmare. I spent all day on it and it still isn't finished.

I've installed a few of these before, and it has always been a simple process. Red, black, yellow and blue wires to run the player, and then the 8 speaker wires. But this Sprinter had the system from hell, with a total of 15 wires running into it. I used my multimetre to trace the connections but lost the plot somewhere.

Basically I have the CD system running, but we've lost the central locking and his theft alarm (both of which ran through the radio it seems).

Does anyone have any experience with the wiring in these cars?

[boban]

I worked as a custom installer for a number of years and from my experience the Sprinter or Corolla is not a difficult vehicle at all to work on. Quite the opposite.

On the head unit:

The red wire is switched power.

The black is negative (ground it to be sure, as some of the wires in the harness show up as a negative until switched on, such as the interior lights.)

The yellow is permanent power, or power that never turns off.

The blue wire does not power the system. It should be a remote switch that will power up an amplifier or power antenna. Disconnect it if you don't have either.

All the above connections/wires can be found using a test light. Very easy to do.

The speaker wires are located by either tracing them from the originals (rarely if ever done) or using a AA battery. When you have located both wires the speakers will pop.
Just get all the phases right otherwise you will get little if any bass.

As to the alarm and central locking, you have probably disconnected a power source or blown a fuse. Reconnect everything as it was and start again.

[Rossluck]

Thanks Boban, but your description of the wiring is exactly what I'm used to. Unortunately it didn't match the Sprinter's colour coding at all. I've traced it all pretty well, but don't have a permanent (key off and out) power supply to connect to the yellow on the CD player to keep the settings and so on.

The rest of it is OK. But it's been a battle. The negative/earth is brown, the positive (key on) is grey, the speakers were easy because we replaced them as well ... I could go on.

Is it the wrong thing to do to run a new fused line from the battery to supply a constant power source for the yellow?

[Yonnee]

Try these guys, available at autObarn, etc. http://aerpro.com/vrg.php

You might need one of these... http://aerpro.com/p.php?pcode=AP1761

Yonnee.

[boban]

Sorry I didn't see your reply earlier.

The colour coding wont necessarily be the same on the vehicle. You must use a test light to ascertain which wire is switched and which is permanent. The Sprinter has a permanent power wire. Worse case scenario is taking it off the steering column or even off a clock.