This is for the archives. I now know why most retailers won't touch a Corvette. This is more for the archives than anything. The car in question is a 91 C4 with Bose. This job is not for the timid.

First off the car had a hack job of a stereo to begin with. I had to pull all of the aftermarket stuff out and start completely over. This consisted of two amps, subs, front and rear speakers, lots of wiring. The origianl installer had butt spliced in to the power, ground, constant, and antenna at the brain. I removed all but splices and reconnected to the wires back to factory by soldering and covering the solder with heat shrink.

I installed a aftermarket deck and 4 aftermarket speakers.

Most people would normally start here. Start by removing the dash and associated panels so you can get to the radio and radio brain which is above the passengers right foot. I removed the brain out of the car. I routed the antenna wire to the center console area. I used a Scosche harness adapter which is used in many GM cars. I removed all the speaker leads out of the harness since the car is wired for Bose. I then used wire to connect the power, ground, constant and antenna out of the Schosche piece and routed the wires back to stereo area where I connected to the aftermarket stereo harness. All connections in the aftermarket stereo are now soldered and heat shrinked.

Now that I had the harness run to the stereo area. I then prepped the rest of the car to reinstall the aftermarker speakers. This is where I pulled out the seats, several panels in the rear, and the covers over the front speakers. I found 7.00 dollars in change under the drivers side. I found the origianl factory wheel lock under the passenger side. I soldered the speaker output leads to Monster cable speaker wire. I then wrapped the wires being routed under the dash with 3M electrical tape so if you look under the dash it does not stand out. I then neatly secured and tucked the wire under the carpet to not be seen.

Once I had all the wiring in, I connected all the speakers and deck tested to make sure everything worked correctly. After making sure everything worked I mounted the radio to the Metra kit and installed it in the dash. This kit does require some patience.

I then reinstalled all the speakers in to the existing aftermarket speaker mounts. Later on these will be replaced with better fitting panels. After reinstalling the speaker I reinstalled all the carpeting, panels, seats and dash.

Things I found. The Metra Kit centered the radio just slightly right of center causing the trim panel to pop off on the car. The original trim panel is broke and the mounting piece in the inside of the dash that the clip on the right side mounted to was also broke. Maybe on a factory unmolested car if both sides clipped in maybe the trim peice would center better. I think this can be fixed by slotting the mounting tabs on the Metra kit and moving it over on this car.

I am working on getting some pictures of the harness posted.

 

I feel your pain...I did the same thing last year and replaced all of the bose crap with an aftermarket deck and speakers. Serious pain the butt, I've installed many car stereo in my other cars but none took as long as the Vette.