My cr-915 radio has intermittent FM and a tape head poorly aligned. I am considering whether to move up to a modern radio with an ipod input and so-called HD capabilities, to get extra channels. Any ideas on the difficulty of connecting a new radio to my old wiring harness. Also, I am wondering whether I have a separate amp somewhere or is my amp built into the radio? Lastly, will the new radio be able to handle the antenna up signal? The other option is to take apart my cr-915 and solder in an ipod input and hope to repair the FM circuit but that would be hit or miss.

Yes, an aftermarket unit with IPOD & HD capability will work. For about $150, you can get a decent unit with direct high speed IPOD capability and HD expandibility. Hookup requires adapters to bypass the factory amp, a relatively simple procedure. Crutchfield.com has an Alpine with those features and at that prices, and they will throw in the IPOD cable, the adapter harnesses and instruction for free.

I did this in two 740s - no more than two hours, including crimping the harnesses.

The 3 wires from the volume control were then (with spade connectors) connected to an old cell telephone charger cable I had lying around (shielded) and I also had an old RCA jack that I mounted in the center console box. The cable to the ipod is really a video cable from a camera but it works fine and is black..

Here is an update: I decided to just solder in an input onto the volume control of my radio. It sounds great. Much better than the usual cassette method I had been using . Here are pictures (click to enlarge). I just cut an access port to reach the board. I hate taking apart radios. The second photo is a shot from above looking at the volume control. The first shows the three wires soldered in. They go to my ipod headphone-out. I got this idea from someone on the web who used a dummy cassette - but I was surprised to discover that is not needed.