The Lotus Grand Tourers

Need a little help with the wiring for a new radio. Bought new radio today to fit at the weekend, thought I'd take the old one out to see what I'm up against.

There's an extra wire that isn't shown in the service notes. It's black then changes to red into the back of the radio. New radio only needs the green/yellow and purple power wires. Question is what's the wire for and what do I need to do with it?

Old radio is a Blaupunkt.

Guy.

The wiring diagram shows two earths (black wires in the loom) on the original equipment.

Sounds like you've found one of them.

If you don't need it, just isolate it and make sure it's insulated to prevent any accidental shorting. My preference would be to tie it to the other earth though.

Yeah I found both the earths, they where bolted to the back of the radio. This is another black wire. Will probably isolated it when I fit the new radio, but would be nice to know what it's for.

Well finally got the radio sorted, had an electrician friend sort out the wiring.

Isolated the black wire in the end, radio works well and sounds great, after replacing all four blown Blaupunkt speakers.

Guy.

Mind if I join in here...
Pioneer radio cassette in my recent purchase, lights up, tells me which radio station is selected but there's no sound. So much better than Chris Evans in the morning but useless as I prefer R4.
There's a long straight plug into the head unit, 9 pins, an aerial, another circular plug and socket thay looks like a CD changer lead but there isn't a changer (or I haven't found it yet).
Called into a radio shop this morning and the guy suggested ways of telling if its the unit or the speakers that are at fault but asked if there was a separate amplifier....
Anyone any ideas if one was originally fitted?
The wires in the console look like a factory fit done badly then scotch locked...
The guy in the radio place seemed to think there would be another more standard pair of connectors further down the harness but if there are my hands aren't small/long enough.
Need to get this sorted as my singing is terrible...

Skyedriver wrote:Mind if I join in here...
Pioneer radio cassette in my recent purchase, lights up, tells me which radio station is selected but there's no sound. So much better than Chris Evans in the morning but useless as I prefer R4.
There's a long straight plug into the head unit, 9 pins, an aerial, another circular plug and socket thay looks like a CD changer lead but there isn't a changer (or I haven't found it yet).
Called into a radio shop this morning and the guy suggested ways of telling if its the unit or the speakers that are at fault but asked if there was a separate amplifier....
Anyone any ideas if one was originally fitted?
The wires in the console look like a factory fit done badly then scotch locked...
The guy in the radio place seemed to think there would be another more standard pair of connectors further down the harness but if there are my hands aren't small/long enough.
Need to get this sorted as my singing is terrible...

I don't think a Pioneer unit is standard. There was no additional amplifier fitted in the factory. Scotchlocks (ugh!) suggest that someone has converted it to an ISO connector, badly.

If you have (had) a CD changer, it will be mounted in the boot - or the wiring for it will terminate there as part of the Clarion wiring system.

You should have the aerial cable, switched & unswitched power + earth to the unit (possibly also with a lighting feed) plus 8 wires for speakers (signal & return for each of the four fitted).

Thank you Sir
Thats kind of what the man in Monaghans said too
He thought there would be two standard connectors down the harness but not found any so far
He suggested a way of testing the speakers which I'll try this weekend
TBH the way the speaker wires are doubled up into the single connector makes me think they are wired wrongly. Double up yes but not that order.
Thats the worst of trying to put someone elses male-chicken-ups right
So many other things to sort too..and my garage is too small to get the doors open fully

Skyedriver wrote:Thank you Sir
He thought there would be two standard connectors down the harness but not found any so far

There won't be - Excel wiring predates the modern standard ISO plugs.

If I have a chance, I'll dig out the service notes over the weekend and post up a list of wire colours for you.

'89 onwards wiring :

Purple = fused feed from battery
Green or Yellow/Green = live feed switched by ignition switch
Black = earth (two earths are shown)

Slate/Black & Slate = RHS Front speaker
Slate/Green and Slate/Red = RHS rear speaker
White/Black & White = LHS Front speaker
White/Green and White/Red = LHS rear speaker

Beginning to understand why the radio doesn't work
No speakers...at least not behind the first grill I have removed!
Tried a spare speaker on the leads out of the radio but that didn't raise my hopes about the radio either though!
Think this is start from scratch...car is an '87 so may be different to your 89 wiring but there is a loose blue lead floating around in the wire knitting.

Blue = feed from headlamp circuit (present to control panel illumination if the radio needs it).

Thanks again, ther are more pressing matters really but thought I woud have a look at the radio. My singing is getting worse.

Searching in the half light, I have 4 cables for speakers, a thick black and a thin black that returns under the dash, a red,a purple, a yellow that isn't wrapped as in a harness, a yellow/green.
Not sure who did the Pioneer installation but there are 3 separate fuses on the red, the yellow and the purple are fused, there are a couple of orange blocks about 10mm sq x 45mm long and a black block about 50mm cube. looks like they've just used everything in an installation kit plus a few bits from an Ikea kitchen!
There is also a cable about 9mm dia with a circular plug with 8 sockets for pins...
If there are any radio experts out there ....help!
It's an 87 model.

Get out the multimeter. blacks are probably earths. The other three will probably permanent positive, ignition switched positive and maybe light dimmer feed (feed possibly from cigarette lighter wire). Try a multimeter from the earths to each other wire with ignition off, ignition off and then lights on. Think the green/ yellow is a switched accessory - ie used to supply a ignition switched power supply to the cd changer.
The multi pin thick cable will be for a cd changer. Guess the other end is dangling somewhere.
Hope this helps. Not an expert but a bit of google and what I can remember when I wired a new radio into mine.
Ted

Started to pull this apart this afternoon.....
Apart from the fact that I have lost the live feed (off to see the wiring diag in another thread) I just cannot believe what has gone on, with the red wire fused 3 times and through a "black box". The yelow green is spliced into another colour (red I think) the orange changes from one colour to another and I have no idea what the orange "blocks" are!
Thought the this black with circular connector was remote CD as it looked like one I removed from a Volvo. No sign of a CD and the Pioneer has no facilities to switch a CD on off!
Honesty believe that someone was retiring and used up everything they had left in stock, it's a total mess. Planning to just cut off everything and start again but still keep wondering if the old Pioneer still works.
As it has an unusual connector no one is able to tell me.
At least the speaker wires are ok, tested them today.

Yesterday I was looking at a fuse box diag on here, today I cannot find it......any clues...