So I was on quite a roll this evening. I got my blower motor working, I got my AC problem narrowed down. I need a couple parts for the turbo, so while I'm waiting, I decided to tackle the radio.
I had gotten quite a windfall of parts in September of '09 from someone who was parting out his truck for Cash4Clunkers. His was real nice, I felt bad. But I feel good about the parts I saved from the wreckers. :) What's amazing about this blog is the timeline. I can't believe how long I've had this truck and how little I've done. It really speaks volumes for where my priorities have been.
One of the things I got was his radio out of his truck. I liked it because it was decent, but not desireable. Since the top comes off the truck, the last thing I want is people breaking the dash up to steal stuff.
The one that was in my truck is a 1998 Pioneer, just like the one I put in my '81 Honda Prelude around then. The front was grimy from the PO (see the link above for the condition of the carpet). The left speaker worked intermittently, and the crackling wasn't pleasant. It's a good deck, this one had just seen far better days. It MAY get transplanted to our Rhino if not tossed outright. The deck in there got caught in a sandstorm and quit working.
When I got the truck, the radio was in its hole, cockeyed. As part of making up all hte issues, the shop that rebuilt my motor had "fixed" my deck. It definitely was straight, and it definitely looked better.
So you can imagine my surprise when I pulled the deck out and found the wires were an outright mess. Some taped, some with wire nuts, some just twisted together. Not the worst wiring job I've seen, but a definite runner-up. The plug for the deck had a screw rammed into it, why, I don't know since the clip works fine.
Happily, they didn't butcher the factory harness, instead using an adapter, allowing me to unplug the absolute mess and plug in the new deck and harness. Click/snap, done!!
While I was in there, I found one more fuse and relay behind the radio at the transmission tunnel/firewall junction (wondering if it's for the rear heater). Toyota put fuses everywhere in their trucks, man!
While I was under the dash, I noticed the RCA cable was routed over the brake pedal rod (no, really) and came down near the gas pedal. I rerouted it over the AC ducting, getting another 5", making it easier to put the deck back in. The cable no longer goes to anything, it looks like a PO swapped out a lot of the nice stuff in there before selling it.
A quick 20 minutes and I had a new-to-me deck installed and ready to go. Even better, both speakers are working and sound fine. The deck is about 7 years old, but it works well and sounds nice. And it's not fancy enough someone will want to steal it.
It doesn't put out nearly as many watts as the Pioneer (about 1/2), I'll see how it sounds next time I drive it. Here's hoping it's OK. If not, another candidate for the Rhino and the sand gods!
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