Missing Stereo Thread - United Bimmer Community

**maximk2** · 04-23-2007, 11:55 PM

A couple days ago (back when i wasnt a member here), and didnt know unitedbimmer.com existed, i googled for help with a bmw stereo, and link brought me to a thread in these forums that talked about everything there was to talk about in installing a deck into an early 90's 3-series. it even had a couple pictures. It helped me do half the job, but now I am stuck and hours of looking for the thread turned up nothing! Basically, it talked in depth about installing a deck into the car, and it was an alpine deck he referred to. If anyone knows what I am talking about, can you please tell me where exactly that post would be. I think back then it was sticky, but now its like its been deleted or soemthing.

PS- My problem is i can't get any speakers to work with my pioneer deck. I got it powered up properly, and it gave music to a test speaker, but none of the wires in the 1993 325i will make the speakers play- and the original stereo was working fine.

witeshark · 04-24-2007, 12:09 AM

Hum. Well try in here

**Dudesky** · 04-24-2007, 05:07 AM

I think you may have us confused with another BMW forum as I personally don't recall such a thread

I also read your other post in another thread. If your car does have an amp, it's located behind the carpeted wall on the left side of the trunk. This will establish whether you have a 6-speaker setup or a 10-speaker setup. Needless to say that you can't just match up the wires in the dash with what you see at the speaker locations. There are some 14 different wiring schemes for the E36 stereo systems

We've established that your car is a '93 325i, but there are three possible setups for that year: the 6-speaker setup, the early '93 10-speaker setup, and the later '93 10-speaker setup. The way to tell the difference between the latter two is to look at the amplifier connectors; there are two of them. One connector will have 12 pins, and the other will have either 12 pins (early '93) or 26 pins (later '93).

Now if you can narrow things down that much, I can provide you with the wiring configuration

Witey- can this be moved to the CA&E section?

**maximk2** · 04-24-2007, 04:29 PM

hey dudesky thanks for your help. i found my amp and its got 2 plugs going into it, and there is 12 wires on each one (one plug is black other is white), so i guess that mine is the early-1993 configuration. although i can only find 4 speakers in the car. 6 if the smaller tweeter-like speakers are counted (basically i got 2 speakers in the front door panels, and by each one of those there is a smaller speaker. there are also 2 speakers in the back.

PS- after hooking up power to deck and the 4 sets of speaker wires, i got 4 wires left. they are:

-White
-White/Brown
-Black/White
-Gray/Red

(Main color/Stripe color)

Now I assume that white is power antennae. So there is 3 wires left that i would probably have to do something with. Any clue on what i gotta do to make this thing work?

**Dudesky** · 04-24-2007, 06:57 PM

Here ya go . .

**maximk2** · 04-24-2007, 06:59 PM

thanks, but i am starting to doubt that i have the 10 speaker system- i only have speakers in my door panels and on the thing in the back.

**maximk2** · 04-24-2007, 07:44 PM

actually i just realized that pwr ant. is what switches on theamp. thank you! i got it to work! now all i gotta do is make my deck fit into the extra-small space for it, but that wont be as hard (sledgehammer)

**Dudesky** · 04-24-2007, 08:03 PM

If you have an amp, it will be a 10-speaker setup. Look in your front footwells for the woofers. Then you have mids and tweeters in each front door. That's 6 so far. Each speaker in the back counts as 2, because there is a separate woofer and tweeter under each grille back there, and that makes 10.