Old car stereo concept advice?

[brianl703]

I put this stereo in my 1998 Nissan Frontier. It's intended for the heavy truck market. Only issue is that it has a dimmer connection that doesn't work with the negative dimmer that Nissan uses. (That's when the dimmer control is in the negative side of the circuit). There's a menu option to manually dim it. Button illumination is switchable between green and orange. Display is white.

I think it looks very stock for a 90s vehicle.

 

[supton]

I put this stereo in my 1998 Nissan Frontier. It's intended for the heavy truck market. Only issue is that it has a dimmer connection that doesn't work with the negative dimmer that Nissan uses. (That's when the dimmer control is in the negative side of the circuit). There's a menu option to manually dim it. Button illumination is switchable between green and orange. Display is white.

I think it looks very stock for a 90s vehicle.

View attachment 138979

That does look decent. I did couple retrofits not that long ago, and will keep this one in mind for the future, as I thought the looks were middling when I got done (but wasn't about to pay extra just for looks).

 

[brianl703]

That does look decent. I did couple retrofits not that long ago, and will keep this one in mind for the future, as I thought the looks were middling when I got done (but wasn't about to pay extra just for looks).

One thing I didn't mention but I will now is that that the radios for the heavy truck market aren't inexpensive but they aren't built cheaply either. They are designed to meet SAE J1455, which "is a recommended set of specifications that characterize the environmental performance and reliability requirements of electronic equipment designed for heavy duty on and off road vehicles."

They will probably outlast the vehicle they're installed in.

EDIT: Most also have weatherband, too.

They also all use ISO standard connectors for the power and speakers, which are the connectors that VW used in the 90s and early 2000s for their stereos.

 

[JHZR2]

I put this stereo in my 1998 Nissan Frontier. It's intended for the heavy truck market. Only issue is that it has a dimmer connection that doesn't work with the negative dimmer that Nissan uses. (That's when the dimmer control is in the negative side of the circuit). There's a menu option to manually dim it. Button illumination is switchable between green and orange. Display is white.

I think it looks very stock for a 90s vehicle.

View attachment 138979

For a newer car I’d consider something like that maybe. Not for my 1991 350sd. It’s really a 70s engineered car that was made through the 80s, and was in its final year in 1991.

 

[brianl703]

For a newer car I’d consider something like that maybe. Not for my 1991 350sd. It’s really a 70s engineered car that was made through the 80s, and was in its final year in 1991.

Maybe something like this, but at over $400, it is pricy..

https://www.amazon.com/BLAUPUNKT-Bremen-SQR-46-DAB/dp/B07XVMBKW4

 

[JHZR2]

Maybe something like this, but at over $400, it is pricy..

https://www.amazon.com/BLAUPUNKT-Bremen-SQR-46-DAB/dp/B07XVMBKW4

I don’t need a head unit. I’d much rather leave the OE head unit there, dd a Bluetooth amp in a hidden spot, and inject the signal into the wires to the speakers.

 

[brianl703]

I don’t need a head unit. I’d much rather leave the OE head unit there, dd a Bluetooth amp in a hidden spot, and inject the signal into the wires to the speakers.

Could add a bluetooth receiver board inside the unit and inject the signal into the wires from the tape head?

 

[JHZR2]

Could add a bluetooth receiver board inside the unit and inject the signal into the wires from the tape head?

Way more work than it’s worth.

The head unit in the dash used to show a display. Now it turns on and off and doesn’t have anything on the display. I could send the whole thing to Becker to refurbish and add bluetooth, but I’m not sure I want to go that route. If the connections are all in the back seat, amd I can use the connections for something else, it may be an interesting option. I’d keep my stock HU, maybe even use it for switching the bt amp on and off.

 

[brianl703]

I’d keep my stock HU, maybe even use it for switching the bt amp on and off.

Maybe you could use some of the buttons on the HU to control the bt amp or board, if it has an option for track select inputs. One of the nice things about BT is being able to skip songs without having to use my phone to do it.

 

[JHZR2]

Head unit alive or dead?

Am guessing the line signals follow whatever is the standard for 600 low levels signals. Id find a walkman and try to splice in, so as to drive the fader, and see what happens. See everything downstream works.

I'd start by checking the connectors. Clean them with a contact cleaner. Also, check the grounds for the head unit and the amps. It looks like "W12" is a common ground for the amps.

Finally got around to tinkering. Since I have a few similar age cars, I pulled the head unit and tuner (two separate items) from one of them and used these as troubleshooting tools.

I found that the tuner itself must be bad. It turns on and off, but neither head unit could implement changes in station. It would swap AM to FM and back but nothing else.

So I used the known good tuner and head unit. Nothing still. Ok, pull the rear seat (easy job) and find the two little amps. Bingo.

Not sure what it is with MB amps, it’s not just this model that is prone to moisture in the amps. And these amps are mounted to the sheetmetal behind the rear seat back in the cabin. Not some odd spot.

I pulled the one harness and the power pin was gone. The pin in the connector was also busted.

I checked all the connections, everything is there and works correctly. The bad wire/pin still has 12v to it. All speaker connections read 2 Ohms.

I cleaned the other side and got that amp working, though the relay in it seems flaky. It will sometimes click on and off. Not sure if the wire, or one of the pins in the connector is bad, or what.

So now it’s crunch time. All speakers are good, switched and constant power are good, grounds are good. One or both little amps are bad.

They can be had on eBay for $25-50 each.

That will defer any issues until the next time something fails.

I can buy a cheap Bluetooth amp, wire it into the two amp harnesses, and use the switched power from the front to run that. A cheap amp set up like that is $95.

I could buy the Kenwood and do the same for like $270.

I could leave the OE head unit in for looks, and even use it for switched power. Quality will be better than audio through a wired fm modulator, and the same as if I sent the HU to Becker for a once over and to add Bluetooth.

What to do???

 

[JHZR2]

Maybe you could use some of the buttons on the HU to control the bt amp or board, if it has an option for track select inputs. One of the nice things about BT is being able to skip songs without having to use my phone to do it.

I don’t know about skips, but I could use it for remote on/off, preserving the look.

 

[Fordiesel69]

If you have the 350DS (Diesel) i would opt to just leave the stereo alone and enjoy the sound of the engine. That alone will be superior to most of the music produced today.

 

[leadcounsel]

It may be too late, or not what the OP wants. But in my experience OEM head units are generally poor quality, offer limited features, and have a weak internal amp. This is particularly true with the technology and design jumps from 30 years ago to something modern, with BT and thumb drive access. It's almost always better to swap out an old one for something new.

For double DIN, I like the sleek touch screen modern designs, that are Bluetooth and thumb drive accessible. Even a nice single DIN unit with BT and thumb drive port make sense IMO. I have 30 GB of music on my thumb drive, neatly arranged in folders. It's basically like having my music library without fumbling for my phone or running the phone battery. Very seamless and clutter free. A mini thumb drive the size of a dime, is under $10 and will fit 5 years' worth of music on it.

Or you can spend hours and hours fiddling with 1990s car audio to rehabilitate a 30 year old head unit.

 

[JHZR2]

It may be too late, or not what the OP wants. But in my experience OEM head units are generally poor quality, offer limited features, and have a weak internal amp. This is particularly true with the technology and design jumps from 30 years ago to something modern, with BT and thumb drive access. It's almost always better to swap out an old one for something new.

For double DIN, I like the sleek touch screen modern designs, that are Bluetooth and thumb drive accessible. Even a nice single DIN unit with BT and thumb drive port make sense IMO. I have 30 GB of music on my thumb drive, neatly arranged in folders. It's basically like having my music library without fumbling for my phone or running the phone battery. Very seamless and clutter free. A mini thumb drive the size of a dime, is under $10 and will fit 5 years' worth of music on it.

Or you can spend hours and hours fiddling with 1990s car audio to rehabilitate a 30 year old head unit.

Any aftermarket head unit is ugly as sin. I’ve never seen one that looks even remotely normal. Even the old (20 years ago) Nakamichi ones were a stretch. There are a few super cheap units that look simple enough that they may fit in some cars. But often the illumination color palette still doesn’t work.

Car has a single din.

The beauty of the bluetooth amps is that since I really don’t use radio, and since the wiring is all there under the back seat, I could literally use all the oe wiring, and even use the oe head unit front section (it’s a two piece unit and the dash section is just for cassette and on/off) for the 12v switched signal for convenience.

Regardless I swapped the behind seat amplifier and the system works well. I’ll add an rf modulator to do Bluetooth and have all options available.