I bought a new radio for the vette seeing that i never had a radio to begin with. Im really wanting to finally have music in the car, but not having a reference point, i dont know where to go. I bought a new radio off ebay which looks like it will fit great. Here is a link to it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...262783050&rd=1

Upon looking at the radio, it looks fairly easy. Connector to antenna, wires for speakers, then three wires for ground, ignition (ACC+), and battery. Here are some pics:



My questions come when it comes time to look at my corvettes wiring. I can tell that bubba has been in my car before because the original bezel was cut, there was about a mile of speaker wire in my dash, and that there are alot of splices and connectors on various wires. So to make sure that i am hooking up the radio correctly, what are the three wires that i need to connect to the radio? Colors would be helpful.

Is this the connector that went to the old radio? (White thing)


Also, I recently purchased a new antenna, and since the old antenna wire is still routed in the car, i dont want to reroute it. Does the antenna come apart right above the uppermost set of threads?

 

On my stock stereo, the red wire has an inline fuse and is the power, yellow I believe is the light, green and gray were for left and right speakers, and black was ground. Since you have a '75 there might be more wires for rear speakers? I am not familiar with speaker locations in a '75. As for the antenna, it does 'come apart' just above those threads, if you can get it apart. I have not been able to and really would like to because mine is a bit bent. I am afraid to get more aggressive than I have for fear of cracking the car, and I don't want to undo the connection to the car. PB didn't help at all either. Good luck with your tunes!

 

The white thing is the plug for an aftermarket radio. Probably if you use the red (or yellow?) it will be ignition switched and the black will be ground. Depending on how inexpensive the unit was they may have used the same black for speaker grounds-I see several black wires in a twist junction. The factory connector didn't have hot all the time, you can use the orange wire to the lighter that is nearby under the console or run one from the fuse box (if the red or yellow is not constant hot). A good Voltmeter would help determine which of those wires does what. If you pull that connector out, you may find the factory wires attached. If memory of the factory colors serves, yellow is ignition switched for radio, black is ground, gray is illumination, dark green/light green are right speakers, and dark blue/light blue are left speakers but don't hold me to that. If you don't have a good year-specific wiring diagram for your car, it might be time to get one.

Can't tell exactly what is wrong with your antenna, but there is a threaded ring that holds the mast into the base right where the arrow is pointing. If you already took the ring off, the mast should just pull out, it is a cone-to-cone type connection.

 

I just put a stock radio in my '75, removing an aftermarket piece of trask from the 80's. I also added an FM modulator so I could use my iPod. If you have stock wiring then there is a 3-wire connector on the drivers side that has power, ground and ??? (I don't have my wiring diagram with me at work, light sounds good). On the back there is a connector for the amp/heat sync and wires to connect to the speakers. The speaker wire has 3 wires, I think blue, green and black. Black is a ground. I think blue and green are left and right channels? On a '75 there are only speakers in the dash unless you add some to the kick panels or rear area. Antena wiring is great to change when you do the carpet and exhaust since the wire runs under the carpet and sill plate on the drivers side, into the rear wheel well area which is tough to get to with the muffler in place.

As far as aftermarket install. The radio I pulled out was wired 'fresh' into the fuse block using one of the 4 accessory plugs there. The 4 are always on (BAT), keys in accessory position (ACC), car on (IGN) and lights on (LGTS) or something close to that. That wiring was done with in-line fuses, even though each of those plugs is 'on' a fuse, generally the one to its right in the block.

When I added the modulator I ran fresh wire from the fuse block, with an in-line fuse as provided by the manufacturer to the modulator. The modulator plugs into the antenna port on the radio and the antenna plugs into the modulator. Then I drilled out part of the bottom of my ash tray and put in a rubber gromet that was acutally an oil dipstick tub thing from the 'help' section at my local murrays. I ran the wires through that for the switch and 3.5mm adapter to the iPod jack. I drilled out the pull tab in the ash tray to use as a mount for the switch and then put it all together. Now I can coil the wire up and hide the whole thing by closing the door over the ash tray. Otherwise I got one of those charger/mount combos and everything works great.

 

1st some antennas do that one looks 2 be a solid mass an antenna install in a vette is 1 of the easiest ant to install pick up a manual retractable $15-$20 it will have a 12" extension on the bottom so you can man handle it around the exhaust. As for your install to factory wires if you need the color for + & _ Lf & Rht just lmk you 12v constant Ilike to run off the battery in out cars however in your dash the wire color is orange and your other 12v+ in the dash is going to be yellow standard GM colors

 

wjsullivan: What FM modulator did you use. I've got a cigarette-lighter POS that I'd love to ditch in favor of something better...

 

It was an audiovox from Circuit City.

 

Ill get my volt meter and test some wires. Thanks for you help guys