I am installing a stereo in my brick and I don't want to make a mistake. There are two wires coming from the power antenna that go to the stereo compartment. One is red and the other is green. Does anyone have an idea of what these go to? Also on my stereo's harness there is a wire for dimmer. Is there a wire for this? And also on my harness there is a wire for constant power and another for ignition switch / power. What is the difference? Thanks in advance....Paul.

If your wiring is a mess, and you've got weird connectors and you're just not sure.. lemmie recommend that you do your own wiring.

Go out to a local electronics store. Get a box of molex connectors (the store I went to had some nice little starter kits that included the terminals), crimp on terminals and such, three or four different colors of wire, lots of extra fuses, and of course a little tool to crimp everything.

Whether or not you want to rip out the old wiring is up to you.

But with those nice crimp on connectors you can create professional looking (and more importantly) and ruseable wiring (if I swap out the radio that's in my car now, I won't have to splice anything off of the existing harnesses). Then the task at hand is to just hook something up to the proper fuse (there are probably a few spare fuses that would allow for you to have an always on and a switched power connection). If you look at the back of the fusebox you'll see the type of connectors you'll need for that.

It's an extremely intimidating task (well it was for me), but it's quite a bit easier than it looks. And if you go this route, you'll know which wire goes to what kinda connection.

P.S. There is a dimmer (at least on the 81+ dashes) for the instrument lighting, but I'd just as soon ignore it. You could probbaly find a wire to tap into hanging off of the instrument cluster (or on a 81+ model the three gauge cluster).

- alex

I don't know how much you paid for the stereo, but sell it. Contact Crutchfield. They will provide a wiring harness. All you must do is plug it in.

Hugh, Sr.
'85 240 GL

My car doesn't already have a harness. I am trying to put the harness on. On newer cars with harness's thats all you have to do. Thanks for the help though.

Ok the car is a '79 244 dl, and the previous owner did mess with the wires. One wierd thing is that the red wire from the power antenna goes to a T connection (I think thats what it is called)with one wire going to the stereo and the other going to another T connection into the hazard light wire. I am thinking that this must be constant power, because the hazard lights always have power. Anyways, now I have the entire harness hooked up but when I turn the key the power antenna goes up and the fuse in the back of the stereo blows. So I am confused at why the power antenna would go up when I turn the key. On newer cars it only goes up when the radio is turned on. Or in volvo's the antenna goes up all the time?

The wires that come from the car are:
1.a thick grey wire (power, I traced it to the back of the ignition/instrument panel then i lost it in a rope of wires) Is this the Ignition/12 volt power?
2.black (ground)
3.green (from power antenna, I am pretty sure that it goes to the power antenna wire on the harness)
4.orange (from power antenna, but does the wierd T connection to Hazard lights)
5. speaker wires, I am not worried about these.

My main questions are Which wire is the ignition switch/12V power? Grey?
Which wire is the constant 12V power? Is it normal to have 2 12V Power wires?
Why would the power antenna be hooked up to the hazard lights?

Hopefully this information will help....Thanks sooooo much for helping me, I am so stuck.....and out of fuses.:(....Paul

Reading through the responses so far there's a lot of good info, but presented in a somewhat confusing fashion - you'll just have to read through and maybe sketch out the suggested wiring schematics and compare to your car.

This installation will be hit & miss - maybe with smoke, sparks and $$$ - unless you get a simple multimeter and check for live wires and grounds. I've used a little Radio Shack analog unit for many years and it does 95% of my automotive jobs even though I have fancier DMM's around. It costs about $12-$14. Get this and start poking around. If your wiring has benn previously messed with, you can't trust any diagrams or color codes - they're just a starting point. Get a meter and know for sure.
--
Bob (81-244GL B21F, 83-244DL B23F, 94-944 B230FD)

I was planning on buying one of these but I was thinking it was called a voltmeter or something. So if I go to radioshack and ask for a multimeter, I will get what I need? Is there anything that it has to have on it, special? Is it pretty self explanitory to use?......Thanks for the input...sorry for the confusing order.

Yeah "Multimeter" is the proper generic term, but Radio Shlock may call it something else. Any R/S store guy should know what you're talking about if you tell him these keywords: "Analog multimeter, about $14, has a 15V DC range (among others), about the size of a pack of cigs"
--
Bob (81-244GL B21F, 83-244DL B23F, 94-944 B230FD)

You want the meter that is catalog No. 22-218 at $14.99. DON'T let them talk you into a digital multimeter - nowhere near as useful for this type of troubleshooting as this little cheap thing. If you are not already quite familiar with using one of these, read the manual thoroughly before you start using it. Nothing dangerous if you goof, but you'll fry the meter, and it will be 5 o'clock on Saturday, and they won't be open Sunday, etc., etc.

"When all else fails, read the instructions."
--
Bob (81-244GL B21F, 83-244DL B23F, 94-944 B230FD)

Why is a digital multimeter not as useful here? About the only thing I can think of off the top of my head that you'd want a fast acting multimeter would be the oxygen sensor (and even then, that may not be of much use with the narrow-band sensor).

Would an analog meter provide sufficient impedence for those circuits that are sensitive to those sorts of things. Besides, you can get a digital multimeter just as cheap, and probably more durable.

- alex

(volvos for sale)

Yeah i don't really have any prior experience with electricty, but like you said i will read the book thoourouly. I don't want to mess up my $600 cd deck. Thank you soo much for helping me....I will probably need some more help later tonight after I get off work....I guess I will just post it here...Paul

I used the multimeter and there is no power coming from the ignition/power line. What do I do? I am thinking that I need to find out where it goes and just see from there. I don't really know though I am stuck....paul

At risk of stating the obvious, you do need to poke one lead at a wire, and one lead at a ground. If you've got a solid black wire there (maybe thicker than the rest) there's a real good chance that's the ground wire.

Otherwise, look for a screw with lots of wires attached to it that you can use as a ground.

- alex

(volvos for sale)

That makes is more difficult. The radio wiring diagrams are bad for this year. Green is constant power and it also goes to the trunk light. There is supposed to be a black wire that goes to a switch to control the power antenna. It sounds like it was controlled manually. An orange wire is not listed. No other wire colors are listed. If in doubt about the wires run new power wires from the fuse box for positive power.

If this is a mid-80's 240... and the wiring does change a bit through the years, so it would help to know what year.... the car-side wiring is as follows:

green = constant +12V. This is normally connected to the yellow "memory" or constant power lead of the stereo harness.
blue = switched +12V, as in through the ignition switch. NOrmally goes to the red +12V lead of the stereo
Grey = dimmer
red = power antenna - your stereo may use a blue or blue/white wire in the harness. My JVC has blue with a white stripe.
black = ground, connect to the stereo harness ground as well as the chassis- I put ring terminals on both wires and connected them both to the back of the radio chassis.

The rest are speaker wires, and depending on where you are in the wiring harness, and whether your car had the optional amplifier, your colors may vary. At the back of the stereo for a base model 240, you should find:
white w/blue stripe: LF Spkr + (becomes yellow-white, then yellow-green)
white: LF spkr - (becomes white, then green)
blue w/white stripe: RF spkr + (becomes yellow-green, then yellow-green)
blue (light blue in mine): RF spkr - (becomes green, then green)

The color changes occur at the 9-pin connector in the dash, then in connectors out near the door speakers. If you get the adapter and faceplate kit that's sold commercially, you'll get a nice wiring adapter with it, that has labeled connections on it, as well as a proper faceplate for either top or bottom dash mounting. They go for about $15. If your car has an amplifier and rear speakers (many 240's do, and it's a lousy amp), you'll either want to run new speaker wires to the back, or remove the amp and go from the plug to the rear wiring harness. These will be completely separate from the front speaker wire connections.
Good luck with it!
--
Rob Bareiss, New London CT ::: '87 244DL/M47- 221K, 88 744GLE- 202K, 91 244 181K, 88 244GL 145K

The year would be helpful.
If you are talking light green it is constant positive. It usually goes to the trunk light too. Red is for the up signal from the radio.
Brown is the dash rheostat for panel lights
yellow is a dim signal to dim displays (your new sterio probably can't use this)
green at the radio is constant positive
blue or yellow/black is switched positive
black is ground.
yellow/white and yellow/grey are front speaker positive leads
white and grey are front speaker negative leads.
red is the power antenna lead.
Depending on year there can be variations on this. You should always verify leads with a voltmeter. Unless you have owned the car from new you don't know if anyone has already messed with the harness.

constant power wire = radio presets & clock...

ingnition switch/power is what makes the radio turn on

dimmer wire? don't think there is one, but not positive

red and green for power antenna - one is probably for antenna up and the other for antenna down. not sure cause i don't have a power antenna, but that would be my guess.

good luck...