How to wire radio diagrams

The best approach is to get a wiring adapter harness. No cutting of wires and no splicing. If you do choose to cut and splice, the only acceptable method is to solder the splices, then seal them with heat-shrink tubing. Never use electrical tape. It will unravel into a gooey mess on a hot day.

Here is the radio wiring below. Check out the diagrams (Below). Please let us know if you need anything else to get the problem fixed.

You can find adapter harnesses at Best Buy. You might be better off just letting them install the radio for you.

I'm trying to find a drawing I made of GM's wire colors and plug colors, but it appears I'm going to have to look on a different computer. I've had seven crashes among five computers in five months, so I've lost track of some of my wonderful stuff.

Your new radio will have the wire colors listed on a sticker on it or in the owner's manual. With my drawing, you can figure out which wires to connect together.

Yup, I'm not ignoring you. I have to find the right flash drive where I saved it. In the meantime, here's my sad drawing of GM's radio plugs from the late '80s to mid '90s. If I remember correctly, the wire colors are the same. It's just the size and shape of the plugs are different.

I have a C10 Pickup and I am having the hardest time wiring in the stereo. I had it going straight to the battery and that worked but I had to remember to turn the radio off when I got out of the truck. In the fuse box, under the dash, there were 3 spots that said "ignition", I plugged it into each, one at a time. The stereo would turn off and on with the ignitiion turned on, but did not keep memory and the radio fuse kept blowing. Any ideas?
Please help!
Cheryl_harwood@yahoo. Com

Hello, there should be two feeds to the radio. Original wire colors, orange is constant 12 volts, for the memory--clock--whatever. Yellow is switched 12 volt--ignition switch feed.

I have a very faded yellow (looks yellow), a light blue and a black coming out of the wiring harness. In the fuse box there are also two spots that say "BAT". An orange wire with a brown plug is plugged into one of them, the other one is empty. When I hooked the wire to each one of these that said "BAT" a buzzer went off.

My wiring info on your model year isn't very good. I can't track wiring circuits. The above info came from, the12volt.com

I didn't want to use their wiring info and not give them credit.

Thank you!
Any idea what the 3 spots in the fuse box labeled "IGN" & the 2 labeled "BAT" are for?

If they blank, nothing plugged in, I would think they are extra feed for ignition and bat add-ons. Ignition feed goes hot with the key on and bat feed is hot all the time. If there is another purpose for those feeds, I don't know the reason?

So technically, I should be able to run the red wire from the stereo to one that says "BAT" and run the yellow wire from the stereo to one that says "IGN"?

If this is a new stereo, the wiring instructions should tell you which wire is which. If the stereo fits your vehicle the connectors should just plug-in. If your trying to hot-wire it, my wiring info isn't good enough. I can't go further.

Yeah, it's a new stereo being put into an old truck. The diagram on the stereo only gives you the details for the wiring on the radio itself. Thanks for all yor help & your quick responses.

Hi, the web site I mentioned is a stereo site.

I'll check it out. Thanks Again!

It sounds like you're looking at the ignition switch for the wrong thing. If the key is loose, that's in the lock cylinder. The switch is separate from that and can develop overheated contacts. In some years that switch was on the side of the steering column, under the dash. Start by looking at the connector body and the switch terminals for signs of blackened terminals or melted plastic. I can describe how to repair that but a new switch will be needed.

The switch contacts can also be pitted and arced with no external visible signs of overheating. Besides that switch, there can be a corroded connection, a stretched terminal in a connector, or a broken wire in the tilt wheel column. The fact you observed the radio will work when the heater isn't on points to the switch though. The high current the fan draws will overheat those contacts much faster and lead to an intermittent connection.

My preferred way to diagnose this type of intermittent problem is to fashion a number of test points where you can connect a voltmeter or test light to watch while you're driving. In this case I would go right to the ignition switch if the wires are accessible. If you have the service manual, you can use the wiring diagram to determine which wire goes to the accessory circuit. If you don't have the diagram, you can figure it out by seeing which wire has 12 volts when you turn the switch to the "run" position. There can be two or three of those but there's a good chance an '83 model will have just one. Attach a small clip lead, or poke a piece of wire into that terminal, then connect your test light to it. You'll see the test light light up, or the voltmeter will read around 12 volts when you have the ignition switch on. Now it's just a matter getting the fan and radio to quit. If the test light goes out too, the break in the circuit is before where it's connected. That would likely be in the ignition switch. If the test light stays on when the circuit quits, that proves the cause is after that point, typically at some other connector.

If the problem is after the switch, a good suspect is the fuse box. GM experimented with using aluminum wire around that time. They were attached to the fuse box terminals with brass rivets. Two different metals and an acid causes "galvanic action", similar to what takes place in a battery, but in this case it's corrosion. Road salt is an acid. If that gets on your shoes it will migrate through the carpet up to the fuse box where it leads to corroded and loose connections. Water alone will do that too. Aluminum oxidizes very quickly too, but that oxidation protects more oxidation from going deeper. When you scrape away the oxidation, you'll get very shiny metal that will also oxidize within a few seconds. Once that starts, and the powder flakes away, the wire under the rivet head becomes loose, then normal vibration rubs more of that oxidation away which allows still more to occur. If you let that go on long enough, you'll have just a pile of powder on the floor and no wire.

The way you can diagnose that type of bad connection is to find you still have 12 volts at the ignition switch when the circuit quits, but there won't be any voltage on either side of the radio fuse or the heater fan fuse.