does anyone know how to rewire an 82 wagon for a cd player, it would be a big help thanks.

Unfortunately, I don't know the exact wiring colors, but I can give you a start. Perhaps one of the EA81 owners will point you in the direction of the correct wires to splice.

 

Your stock H/U is only going to have about 7 or 8 wires. A 12V switched wire, a ground wire, four + wires for the speakers (or two if you only have two speakers), and one ground wire for all four (or both) speakers. There may or may not be a constant 12V lead in there. You can use a test light or a multimeter to figure out what wire is what.

 

If there is a 12V constant wire, great, splice that to the yellow wire on the new CD player. If not, you'll have to run a wire from something that has 12V all the time - probably the battery. And you'll need a fuse on that wire, the same size as the one on the back of the CD player.

 

Next, find your 12V switched wire. It'll be dead when the car is off and 12V when the car is switched to the ACC and ON positions. Splice that to the red wire on the new H/U.

 

The wire that goes to ground goes to the black wire on the H/U.

 

Now, you're into speaker wires. EA81s are common-ground, meaning all the speakers share the same ground wire. This simply sucks, because you'll have to rewire it. Trace factory speaker wires to each speaker's harness inside the car. The front ones should be somewhere under the carpet or up in the dash. The rears will probably be by the B-pillar. Usually it's a pink connector. You'll want to run a pair of speaker wires to each pair of speaker wires, one +, one -. You can figure out which speaker is which and their polarity by touching a 9V battery to each pair of speaker leads and listening to each speaker "pop." If the speaker moves out, hook the + and - leads the same as the battery was connected. If it moves in, hook them up opposite to how the battery was.

 

Once you have both or all four sets of speaker leads connected, run them back up to the H/U. You might want to mark them somehow so you don't forget which speaker is which. If you do forget, use the battery again to pop each speaker. You'll want to hook the leads up so that the left front goes to the grey wires, the right front goes to the white wires, the left rear goes to the purple wires, and the right rear goes to the green wires. A solid-colored wire is +, - has a stripe.

 

So, just as a quick wiring diagram:

 

Power:

 

 

• Red: 12V Switched
  
• Yellow: 12V Contant
  
• Black: Ground
  

Speakers:

• Grey: Left Front Speaker +
  
• Grey with a Black Stripe: Left Front Speaker -
  
• White: Right Front Speaker +
  
• White with a Black Stripe: Right Front Speaker -
  
• Purple: Left Rear Speaker +
  
• Purple with a Black Stripe: Left Rear Speaker -
  
• Green: Right Rear Speaker +
  
• Green with a Black Stripe: Right Rear Speaker -
  

Other Stuff:

 

• Orange: Illumination (dims H/U display when the headlights are on)
  
• Blue: Power Antenna
  
• Blue with a White Stripe: Amplifier turn-on
  
• Pink, Brown, and sometimes other colors, maybe with stripes: Cellular mute lead (mutes sound when a connected cell phone rings)
  

There are occasionally other colors too. Just kinda depends on the headunit. If your H/U is an older Pioneer, some of the speaker leads may not be the right colors.

whats not in the factory location that you need to find/run:

 

constant 12v to the deck, you can splice in at the ignition...

 

you can also use the test light to find the haedlight hot for your dimer

 

i just suggest running new speaker wires from the deck to the speakers

 

 

whats there already:

 

use test light to find 12v keyed on

ground

Just to point out...the previous posts assume that your dash harness is in decent condition. Mine was not. I didn't want to rewire everything, so I ran a fused line from the battery to the deck's power wire, tapped into the 'run' side of the ignition for switched power, and replaced the speakers. Scosche makes a dash kit to help retain your deck. Shouldn't be more than $15-20 at your local stereo shop. You'll want to make sure you get that because your radio console is not deep enough to get a modern deck to seat properly.

Nice write-up Samo. Might want to save that one for the FAQ or the USRM.

Sure, I'll send that one on to the USRM. I suppose I should add EA82s in there too. Do any of you happen to know the colors of the wires inside the dash of an EA81?