i still have the original blaupunt (or however it's spelt) stereo in my car.  Well i thought that i'd start to put my nice md head unit in so i popped down to the local halfords to get myself a wiring harness so that i didn't have to cut all the wires.

get home and what do i find, but the connectors on the car are nothing like what fit the harness.  i checked, double checked and even treble checked the codes before i paid for it and it even says on the front of the box that it's the right one. 

any ideas?

car is a 1990 so it is a fairly early one.

that is similar to what i bought.  but it's got a connector both ends.  one for the bmw connection and one for the aftermarket stereo.  don't really want to cut the wires as i'd like to be able to stick the original radio back in if i wanted to.  the stereo that's in it is a pull out jobbie not just a face or pannel off item.

The stereo that is in the car as far as i'm aware was fitted by BMW , certainly the AMP and CD Changer were so I would hope the connector hasn't been cut off  ... I'm going to buy a ISO converter from Halfords on me lunch break today then have a proper look after work tonight

e34m5 wrote: Have you removed the cage from the original radio and checked for the BMW connector ? You should find a female version of the connector above with a locking clip to hold them together. Has your new radio got standard ISO connectors ? This is the adaptor i used : Miles

That's the one i got but if i take the connector off the pull out stereo cradle it won't fit in the above adaptor.

just trying to fit my sony job.   will be fun when i get arounf to buying the dvd palyer and screens

e34m5 wrote: Have you tried tracing the wiring back a bit further to see if you can find the BMW plug ? Mine was buried deep at the back of the dash to allow the radio to slide in correctly. Miles

had a quick look but couldn't see much.  i might take the glove box out to see what i can find.  i was being a bit careful the other day as there's all the wiring for the obc, heater / ac etc.

taking the glove box itself off wont help much you have to take the trim that covers the void from the right hand side of the glove box. If you pull the cable through from the hole you should be able to pull the cables out far enough to find the brown connector that miles is talking about. Mine however was cut off from a previous owner because they couldnt be bothered to get a BMW-ISO connector. I have since resoldered a BMW connector to my loom and used the correct harness (pictured above) as i like things to be easy when i change stereos about.

Russ

Cheers Miles knew you'd know the answer

535isport can I ask why you wanted to know ??

deathace - cheers for saving me time by saying about the glove box.

bmwe34sport - metrics are a radius of about 415mm i think.  my spare is one.  most people get rid now because tyres are mega £££  i have one as a spare and that's it.  when it needs a new tyre i'll be finding something else to use.

you should be able to pick up a BBS not metric like mine on Ebay if you wanted one quite cheap , there always seems to be people breaking E34's or you might even find someone selling a single wheel the same as yours its worth a look

Stu

cheers i'll have a look. 

thing is with my wheels, they're off an e46. garage that i bought the car off thought they looked good.  yeah they look ok but the off set is all wrong der!!!

Oh dear thats not good ...I remember seeing your car on Autotrader (i live in Herts ) and thought it was tasty especially the wheels ..but they are E46 ones

yup i saw it on auto trader as well.  apart from the wheels being the wrong offset and me not noticing till i got the car home it's pretty good though.

managed to get a few hundred off of it as well.  still nothing that some spacer won't sort out.  if i ever get round to buying them lol!!

Cool ...going back to the original post I have just taken the old pioneer head unit out of my car and had a rummage around looking for the BMW connector and all I can seem to find is some round connectors which plug into a cable coming from the back of the headunit , they look like Multichanger cables and i know that one of them is but the othet 2 seem to power and control the speakers , i cant even feel a square connector anywhere although it might be behnd the OBC

How easy is it to get the OBC out because I then might be able to see what is going on better . I'm going to take a pic when i get a chance of the connectors

thanks Miles , this is what the connectors look like currently

they seem to join behind the OBC I will go and try to remove the OBC now

I can't seem to get the OBC to move I don't want to force it   Orange cable runs right round the back of the OBC , I can feel an in line fuse holder but cant feel anything that is like the ISO , the CD change cable is plugged into the head unit so it can't be that , there are 2 connectors identical on the one i'm holidng and then the cd changer cable

I got the OBC out ...hasn't really helped much can't see anything obvious that could be the ISO connector ..think it might be time to take it down to my local audio specialist and get them to fit it

Just can't get my rather large hands all the way round the back and obviosly i don't want to start pulling wires too hard

Not in the norfolk area are ya, as i would gladly offer my services if you were.

Russ

Interesting .. I will have a look through all the paperwork I got with my car but i'm pretty sure there isn't the original invoice for the car ...there is an invoice for replacing an amp under the glovebox though

Isn't there somewhere on the web where i can type my VIN in and it will tell me what spec my car was out of the factory or can a dealer do it ?

fitted a new head unit to mine today had to chop out a nasty pionear pullout stereo with what i thought was a changer lead wired in my new one and had no rear speakers thought i would be clever and cut into the dimm loom and try to rewire big mistake!!!!!!

i ended up wiring the fronts as normal then installing a cheapy amp (running the rca wires was a nightmare as these cars are built right!!!!) to run the rears  all in all not what i wanted  still makes puttin a sub in all that easier!!!

Well thats what I thought I would have to do but i was very pleasantly surprised with whats in there already , the sound quality is superb ..better than the Kenwood speakers I had in my E30 , so the only thing I might do at some point is put a sub and amp in , which wont be hard as the battery is under the back seat so I wont have to run loads of cables  

Congrats on getting it sorted.

Russ