Wire colours

Hi,

About to tackle installing a stereo into Defender and was wondering if there was a link or resource to wire colours. Or is it obvious when i take the dash apart what wires do what?

I found this link for a Series III which is great

http://www.fourfold.org/LR_FAQ/Series/FAQ.S.wires.html

Just wondering if there is any difference for a 1991 Defender 90.

Also is it safe to use an existing ground cable, using a scotch block or should I ground it direct to the chassis. If so does anyone have any recommendations.

Cheers

Les

for best results especislly if yer going orf road is to solder every joint and go direct to the chassis for your earth. don't forget to clean back to fresh metal for your earth. if you use scotch blocks or even worst them crimp on bollocks you'll
be looking for a fault after the first couple of bumps.

Scotch locks should be made bloody illegal.....yuk yuk yuk!

LOL Fired-up

OK so how, without Scotch blocks, would I wire the stereo in so it only powers up when the ignition is turned on. So then the stereo switches off when the ignition is switched off.

basically I have no wiring loom for the stereo, this is from scratch. on previous cars theres been one and its been dead easy to just plug in.

have you got any marking on yer radio loom;;ie the wire coming oot the back of yer radio?? what colours are they..

I know what the wires coming from the back of my stereo are, the important ones

Yellow = direct to positive terminal of battery (no problems there)
Red = to ignition switch (somewhere)
Black = earth on chassis (somehow)

Really just wondering which wire to hook to red one into?

if you have a test light or a leccy meter test the wires coming off the ign switch until you find one that does what you want it to.i.e comes live with ign on!! then solder on to that one ,don',t forget to put an inline fuse in aswell.

good idea , I have a dtm that will do the trick, well tommorrows the day when I get it all wired in, fingers crossed.

Gecko said:

LOL Fired-up

OK so how, without Scotch blocks, would I wire the stereo in so it only powers up when the ignition is turned on. So then the stereo switches off when the ignition is switched off.

Click to expand...

Invest in a soldering iron my friend

jim

Fired-up said:

Invest in a soldering iron my friend

Click to expand...

cheers mate, but have two already, and pretty handy too

as it happened it all went fine. Just for others who might come across this and dont know, I know I searched and there is little resources on fitting stereos. In the dashboard there is a black cover protecting the wires for the cigarette lighter and rear wash wipe. Took the cover off, which exposed these wires and I could then see the Landys electrical wiring loom. As it happened there was three loose cables with strange three socket connectors, colours Brown, white and black. Guessing correctly that black was earth I then used my multimeter to work out which of the brown and white was live. Brown was permanent live and white was switched via the ignition, both giving out 12V+. Managed to crimp on the smaller red bullet connectors to my stereos wiring loom and connect it via the the correct three socket connectors.

Fitting the stereo mounting pod required removing the top of the dashboard. Then used screws and u-nuts to secure the pod in place. Very simple procedure and no gotchas. Worth mentioning, disconnect negative earth cable from battery before doing any electrical work.

Cheers

Les