After market radio wiring. Need help

[Kibokojoe]

Just purchased a Kenwood KDC-X492 and want to replace the existing factory radio. The factory radio has individual wires and no block connector. Are wires coming out of the factory radio positive speaker leads? If so what do I do with the negative leads from the Kenwood? Can I just connect the positive leads from the factory wiring to the positive leads going into the Kenwood radio? With no negative leads going into the Kenwood what is going to happen? The Kenwood also has preouts for the front, rear and Subwoofer. What do I do with these?


Here are the Kenwood wiring details

[BMWDriver]

The pre-outs are for an eventual amplifier/subwoofer that you would add. So they are pretty much useless unless you buy an amplifier or/and a woofer.

You can try to wire without the negatives. You ought to have sound, since the speakers are already grounded to the chassis (or straight to the bat's negative, I don't know for sure) instead of the head unit.

Another option is to run cables to the speakers to get negatives back in front for a more conventional setup. Some take the occasion to upgrade their speakers to their favourite brand and change cables entirely.

[Rus]

Don't worry about the pre-outs. Connect all the positive speaker wires just like the originals were hooked up. Now here's the kicker...look on the back of your Kenwood. Is there a screw of some sort in the rear? My Kenwood unit had a screw in the heatsink. What you want to do is take those brown-orange wires screwed to the back of the stock unit, and attach them to the back of your new one. This is the communal negative for the speakers. Without this hook up, the speakers will be very very faint (ask me how I know :-p ). Don't forget your antenna wire hookups as well as the dimmer. Hope this helps.

[Kibokojoe]

great now how do I hook up the positive electrical.
Yes I have a post on the back of the old radio with the orange black wires. This goes under the tampering mechanism. So that the speaker ground.

I am assuming the Kenwood
1. ILLUMI (KENWOOD) is connected to the dimmer/memory wire (Factory)
2. PCONT (KENWOOD) is connected to ? (Factory)
3. ANT CONT (KENWOOD) is connected to ? (Factory)
4. MUTE (KENWOOD) is probably not used

5. Ignition wire (KENWOOD) is connected to + on the Ground/Ignition (Factory)
6. Battery wire (KENWOOD) is connected to +12V that is always on, but where (Factory)
7. Ground wire (KENWOOD) is connected to where? (Factory)

[Kibokojoe]

Just purchased a Kenwood KDC-X492 and want to replace the existing factory radio. The factory radio has individual wires and no block connector. Are wires coming out of the factory radio positive speaker leads? If so what do I do with the negative leads from the Kenwood? Can I just connect the positive leads from the factory wiring to the positive leads going into the Kenwood radio? With no negative leads going into the Kenwood what is going to happen? The Kenwood also has preouts for the front, rear and Subwoofer. What do I do with these?


Here are the Kenwood wiring details

great now how do I hook up the positive electrical.
Yes I have a post on the back of the old radio with the orange black wires. This goes under the tampering mechanism. So that the speaker ground.

I am assuming the Kenwood
1. ILLUMI (KENWOOD) is connected to the dimmer/memory wire (Factory)
2. PCONT (KENWOOD) is connected to ? (Factory)
3. ANT CONT (KENWOOD) is connected to ? (Factory)
4. MUTE (KENWOOD) is probably not used

5. Ignition wire (KENWOOD) is connected to + on the Ground/Ignition (Factory)
6. Battery wire (KENWOOD) is connected to +12V that is always on, but where (Factory)
7. Ground wire (KENWOOD) is connected to where? (Factory)

[Rus]

great now how do I hook up the positive electrical.
Yes I have a post on the back of the old radio with the orange black wires. This goes under the tampering mechanism. So that the speaker ground.

I am assuming the Kenwood
1. ILLUMI (KENWOOD) is connected to the dimmer/memory wire (Factory)
2. PCONT (KENWOOD) is connected to ? (Factory)
3. ANT CONT (KENWOOD) is connected to ? (Factory)
4. MUTE (KENWOOD) is probably not used

5. Ignition wire (KENWOOD) is connected to + on the Ground/Ignition (Factory)
6. Battery wire (KENWOOD) is connected to +12V that is always on, but where (Factory)
7. Ground wire (KENWOOD) is connected to where? (Factory)

1) Yes.
2) P.CONT - not connected (12 volt continous output whenever the unit is on)
3) Ant. Cont -> Power Antenna. This is your antenna amp signal from the radio. We have film-type antennas in the rear window. (12 volt output only when you're listening to the radio)
4) Mute - not connected.
5) Yes
6) This is gonna hook up to one of the wires in the dimmer/memory plug. Use a multimeter to see which one is always hot. The memory part refers to a constant +12 on one of the wires used to maintain radio memory.
7) Ground should be bundled in the Ground/Ignition factory hook up. Again, test which wire is which in the factory configuration of the plug and hook up accordingly.

Hope this helps. Kudos for doing your homework before jumping into the wiring. Just remember that the factory drawing lists the little plugs, not individual wires. Some plugs have more than one hookup, like the ignition/ground combo.

[Kibokojoe]

Thanks for the info. I will get my volt meter out and perform a through checking before I start wiring. I will draw it all out in pen before I start clipping wires. I have had the wires off the radio a couple of times to repair the radio. I seem to remember that some of the wires had multiple leads as you said. Ignition/ground is easy enough to figure out but I wonder what the dimmer/memory is? I would think the memory lead would probably be a constant 12V. Perhaps the dimmer is for dimming the radio lights when the headlights are turned on. Seems logical. Easy enough to test with a meter. I will document all of this with text and pics and post it. Hopefully it will help someone else out. Now I need to do some research on speakers. My sons 91 735i has a $1300 stereo and he has some really sweet dash speakers made by Pioneer that actually fit into the hole in the dash. Just like the originals. Very nice but so far I have not been able to locate them on line. I will probably pull them this weekend and see if I can find some manu numbers.

[Rus]

You've got it right.

Dimmer - gets positive 12 volts when your lights are on. Radio dims its lights.
Memory - +12 volts all the time to save your station presets and whatnot.

I recall you saying that the 735 has some sort of aftermarket audio system. If so, there might be an external amplifier and it may need to be hooked up to the P.Cont wire (to get a signal to turn on when the unit is on).

[Kibokojoe]

Yes on the 735i but this radio is for my 535i.

[Rus]

Ahh. Nevermind then. Good luck with the wiring!