i bought the truck from my uncle for 500 dollars as a fix-er-up and i got the radio that didnt work out, and i only found a ground and an antenna, where are other wires i need at?

 

Welcome to FTE! The radio grounds through its mounting nuts. The other two wires that run to a stock radio are:

Blue w\ red stripe - dash illumination
Yellow w\ (I think red?) stripe - radio power, hot in accessory only. It's not hot when the truck is shut off.

 

would i have to replace it with an older radio, or could i put a cd player in? cause the wirings a lot different. and what about speaker wires?

 

i found a connector with a yellow with black stripe and a black with red stripe, just sitting there, what would that be

 

Yellow/Black is the power wire for the radio. The other Could be dial illumination but the color does not match the factory diagrams. Blue/Red, not Black/Red.

 

it may be blue. i am colour blind so i cant mess with the electrical parts myself. where can i find a radio/cd player that with fit those wires?

 

You won't. If you want to install a CD player, you have to wire it all from scratch. Most modern head units run hot-at-all-times, hot-in-acc, and 4 channels for speakers. I have some pictures in my gallery how I mounted my CD player.

 

about how much did it cost you to do all that? im a newbie at all this, this is my first car and i just got to have music haha. sorry if i seem a little bit dumb in this area. what all would i have to remove to rewire everything and it looks like speakers in the door, but i dont have any wiring from the cab to the door

 

I picked up some sheet metal for about $10 to make the side brackets on the stock bracket. I basically just cut a hole in the stock bracket to match a DIN sized unit, then secured the side pieces to the bracket with small angle brackets. I think I spent maybe $300 or so on my head unit, speakers, and rear speaker boxes for the speakers behind the seat. Running wiring to the door speakers is no picnic if your truck didn't come with optional side speakers. You have to drill holes in the door jamb both on the cab and on the door itself, for the wiring to run through. I installed grommets to protect the wiring and I ran the wiring through conduit. To get a decent drilling angle, I took my doors off and I used my cherry picker to make that job a lot easier. I ran the wires up through the doors to behind the dash and fished them through with a coat hanger which is a pretty common procedure. My truck only came with an AM radio and a dashboard speaker, so everything was built from scratch. Keep in mind that older vehicles like these trucks are set up for shaft-style radios which means the radio face is about the size of a deck of cards and the radio mounts through 2 *****. Newer head units are a modernized DIN format and are longer and narrower. You can get carriages that secure them to the dash with bending tabs, but I think that is too flimsy, which is why I secured mine through the sides the same way a CD ROM drive fits into a computer.

Most stereos will come with some sort of wiring diagram to tell you what goes where. For example, my head unit needs hot-at-all times, switched power, dimmer power, ground and the antenna, all of which are back there. I ran the speaker wiring myself. If you're colorblind, you might have someone help you out because most wiring diagrams go by color. Most modern head units have a port in the back for the harness to plug in to, and they come with a matching connector that you splice into your existing wiring. My advice though, don't cut up your existing dash harness. Try to tap into things using mating connectors. Don't worry too much, I think if you get a stereo and you are any good at putting things together (you have to be good with tools to drive an old truck in the first place, in my opinion) then you'll have no problem getting it sorted out. In fact I'd say installing a stereo is one of the best get-to-know-your-truck projects that you can start out with. Nothing too difficult and it's one of those projects where it's pretty easy to figure out things as you go.

 

Off topic but just wanted to say I gave you rep points FMC. You are always so helpful and thorough. Just wanted you to know its noticed.

 

Thanks buddy!

 

your like a hero, no one else has been able to help me, people at the parts store act like complete morons and the audio stores are about the same here. so im a lil confused on the whole harness thing. and all. i have the lil blue and black, yellow and black cable, and the antenna and ground where do i get the harness for say a jvc to connect?

 

If you buy a newer model head unit like a Pioneer or a JVC, it will come with the harness. The harness has two ends - one end plugs into the stereo as a connector, the other end of the harness is just loose wires. The stereo will come with a diagram that says what wire color on the harness, goes to what circuit on your truck. Then you have to find out what wires do what on your truck, which is what you have figured out already. It's your job to then actually hook the wires up. For in-cab, low current wiring, a lot of people opt to use crimp connectors, which works fine. If you're good with wiring you can use solder and shrink wrap to connect wires, which is the most professional way of doing it. Whichever method you choose, when you are done you simply plug in this harness into the back of the stereo and that's it as far as the electrical side of things go. The stereo itself won't have any wires hanging off the back of it, other than maybe subwoofer pre-outs. Like I said, all you'll find on the back of the stereo is a spot for the harness to snap into. As an FYI, you'll probably also need hot-at-all times power. The stock radio just gets its power from hot-in-accessory power, but modern head units need power constantly for the clock, memory, etc. This circuit is where most of the stereo's power sources from; it just uses the hot-in-accessory (yellow) as a switch signal to tell the stereo when you've got the key on. I believe the wire color for this is green with a yellow stripe and there are a few places to pull this as well. The easiest way is the junction block which is a 3-terminal connector that is usually hanging from a raceway along the top of the inside of the dash. Usually if you loosen the glovebox and push it back a ways, you can see it hanging there just to the left of the glovebox.

Here is a picture of the kind of harness I am talking about. You can see the black end is what will plug in to the back of the stereo. The loose wires on the other side are what you'll actually wire into your truck. I pulled this from the internet. These usually come with the stereo.

 

I am trying to wire an aftermarket radio into my 79 F150. Could anyone put up a picture of the wiring for the radio? Of the the original connector and/or the aftermarket harness already wired up for the install... thanks

 

I seriously doubt you will find a "harness" all pre wired and ready to go. Most of these old trucks ( not all but most) came from the factory with an AM radio and 1 speaker mounted in the middle on top of the dash. If you buy a new head unit it will include a diagram of how to wire it up. You can mount 6 1/2 " speakers in the doors, the holes to mount them in are already there. Just remove the door panels and you'll find them. Mounting a new DIN style head unit in these and doing a good clean install is a little more challenging. Do a search in this forum and you will find how others have done it. As far as figuring out what wires to hook where, get yourself a multimeter or test light and find a "key on" hot wire a "continuous hot" wire and a good clean ground. It's not that tough if you follow the diagram for wiring it up provided with the unit. Good luck and don't give up just research things before you jump in and youll be fine.