With some sadness, I inherited my dad's 1995 Eldorado last year and now want to replace the stock non-bose cassette with a HD radio, mp3 player with usb port (JVC KD-HDR60 - nothing special).
I had ordered this radio, dash kit and antenna adapter last year but I wanted to drive my high mileage 02 Alero into the ground before I took the caddy out. I thought that olds was the worst radio replacement I ever did ( I had to buy a separate $120 circuit board to replace the stock radio for the car to even start!). I thought the caddy being older, would be pretty old school but I am stuck fast.
I have the same exact set up as the guy in this post: cadillacforums.com/forums/cadillac-seville-cadillac-eldorado-forum/222690-eldorado-radio-install.html
with the big, plain cassette player and the CDM box in the back near the antenna.
I am finding the in-dash kit doesn't fit well and will have to have all the side tabs cut off and the bottom modified to accommodate the 2 bolts that hold it there and I will need something to support the back of the assembly since my new set up is quite a bit shallower but more urgently, I can't figure out the wiring at all.
The only thing I can find I don't have is this:
crutchfield.com/g_751/Factory-System-Adapters.html?tp=3486 which I will order right now but what is that? There's not much of a description.
Right now I have wires that have no relation to the wiring diagrams I've seen and no antenna wire to plug in the new radio.
This thing I am ordering, will I have to run that all over the car? Any advice on installing or trimming? Neatness is top priority. I don't want to rewire the whole car or buy anything else. I just want to listen to HD radio and play a few mp3s.
For the record, these are my actual wires. They in no way match up to any wiring list for this car lol. They are OEM never been touched till now:
Small connector from car:
Black
space
Purple w/ White stripe
Gray
Orange w/ White stripe
goes to Small connector on radio:
Black
Blue w/ Black stripe
Red
Green
Purple Orange w/ White stripe
White w/ Black stripe
Larger connector from car:
Brown
Yellow
Green
Brown w/ White stripe
Green w/ White stripe
Orange
Black
space
goes to Larger connector on radio:
Orange
Gray
Yellow Red
White
BIG BLUE WIRE Fatter than others what does it mean?
Light Blue
Brown
White
Not only can I not make sense of the colors but the numbers of wires don't even correspond 1-1!
In response to the visitor message you left me, yes you run along the passenger side of the car. Once you remove the paneling you will see the valley with wires in it. You can pass into the dash from the floorwell on the passenger side but it is a very tight fit, you will need to pass through one wire at a time.
The good news is that it's non-Bose. Aftermarket HU in a '95 isn't such a pain - Did you try a simple adapter to connect your unit with the stock connector? Then, all you'd have to do is solder the adapter wiring to the HU wiring (where the color codes would be labeled in a document, or tagged on the wire itself.
I just updated my non-Bose unit with a double-Din JVC HU, and I opted for running new speaker wire, since I swapped out the stock 10 ohm speakers with 6 Ohm Rockford Fosgates all around, and wanted 16ga wire. On a Seville, there was plenty of room running along the existing wiring, and enough slack to lift and tape the new wires along the run.
Hi. I am back. I work on this every Saturday in the hopes I will go for a nice Sunday drive but progress is lackuster. I did get a custom wiring harness from Crutchfield. It is nice because the plug and antenna wire off the CDM box plug right into it then on the other end the colors match up nice to a modern HU.
That part is done but I am having no luck getting the rear seat out! I've been trying for hours. I wedge myself in there till I'm kneeling sideways on the rear floormat then I jab my hip into the front of the rear seat, driving it back and lifting up and I hear something release but it only comes up about an inch and a half. Can't get either side up. Any trick to this? I'm am getting to the point where I just want to jam a prybar in there now
After that, can I get the tip on removing the kick plate from the bottom of the door frame? Usually they screw on but I am not seeing screws on this car.
I'll be happy to get the trunk and rear seat part done. I'm still not totally clear on where I'm going after that but I can't worry about it till the rear seat is out.
Anyone else trying this, these are the parts you need: a black plastic adapter to hold the new HU in the old hole and about 15 pounds of wire lol
Here is the CMD box out. I couldn't get at the bottom bolt to get it out of the bracket so a I had to take the bracket off. There are some wires that plug into the bottom of it too that you can't see in this picture so it ends up still being hooked up. I took my plug and antenna wire off it and put it back where it was.
There are a bunch more mysterious black boxes behind both rear seats. I've never seen so much crazy stuff in a car!
I don't have my manual in front of me, but yeah (I. Push in then II. Pull up) that sounds right. You need to push in on the right spot in front of the hinges otherwise you are just pushing in on the leather and not the hinges. Lift up the seat a little and take a look underneath. You will also need to remove the back of the rear seat. Be careful near the electronic components mounted behind the rear seat (you did disconnect the battery right?).
What worked for me was the following: Lift and clear as much of the rear seat back from the bottom as possible. Mine had never been removed, so at first I couldn't even get my hand between the seat cushion and the seat back. Then, with your fingers, locate (on the floor under the cushion) the 2 spots there the seat hooks in. This is what has to travel backwards (into the seat back) so that you can lift the front out. Next, I hit the bottom of the seat frame right near the 2 spots holding the cushion down with a rubber mallet, being careful as to not hit the leather above it. Then, lift the leather from the seat back again, as the cushion has to travel just a little further back. By now you should have enough clearance to be able to push the cushion back, and lift out of it's "clip". Took me about an hour.
Seat back is easier - there are 2 long bolts toward the top of the seat in the trunk (you might have to climb in...). Remove the nuts (with fat washers), then going back into the vacated back seat, you should see the 2 nuts holding the seat back and seat belts, which should be easy to get out with a ratchet. If you have no plans on replacing the rear deck speakers, then all you have to do is loosen the rear seat, because that harness is small enough fit along the existing wiring running on the passenger side, and pass through the opening you created by loosening the seat back. Well worth the effort!
Ok. I never got the rear seat out :crybaby: I even examined photos others have posted of the car with the seat out and, with the carpeting folded back, I could see and feel the 2 chrome wires and the green body color bracket and, even though I'm sure I had the wires driven back like there was no way they could engage, I just could not get the seat up. Sad, beaten and desperate to drive the car on Mother's Day, I tried an electrician's fish tape from the trunk tight along the one big wire bundle on the passenger side and, by some miracle, this came out right where I wanted, pinned tight on the passenger side:
I never found the hint on removing the door skip plate so here it is:
There are 4 catches on the bottom of the plate: 2 face back and 2 face front.
So, if you are reinstalling it from the front, you push it back hard and down to engage the front catch then front and down to grab the second one then back again for the next one and forwards hard for the last one then wiggle it to split the difference and it's back in place. Opposite to remove. I removed the back first where there is also one phillips screw you must remove.
The rest was easy and a total success. The antenna goes up and down and the system sounds AMAZING! I was so worried those big old 10 ohm speakers wouldn't draw enough power from a modern hu to sound good but I was so wrong. Totally worth the hassle of the installing the wiring harness. I got loads of HD stations in the garage in the middle of nowhere (midway between Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison) thanks I'm sure to an actual antenna as opposed to the thing in the window that I'm used to.
Thanks for the tips. The battery was totally dead from sitting all winter and I had to remove it from the car to charge it. I have a charger with circuitry and, with the neg removed and the charger hooked up to positive and body of car, the charger would state the battery was fully charged on both auto and manual settings. I removed the battery (I had to put bolts in the terminal holes to put the charger on it and I didn't want this frankenstein mess in the car) and the charger went to up to 8 but it came down and was fully charged in about 20 hours. Just another oddity I guess. One day late for Mother's Day but done:bouncy:
Hey, that's a nice, clean install! (And that leather is mint mint, mint, too!) I replaced those 10 Ohm stock jobs with Rockford Fosgates all around, but I DID keep the factory tweeters in the doors. When I get my digital camera back, I'll post mine. BTW, it took me 2 days to get the back seat out. By then, I had the upper back seat loosened up from the trunk, and was able to fish tape the harness through. THEN my stepson decides to help me get the seat out - so I made him vacuum 15 years of dirt out (since the seats had never been out of the car)! Murphy's Law has yet to be repealed.
Here's what a Double DIN install looks like - '95 Seville SLS (with woodgrain Eldorado donor console bezel). Perfect fit, and now, perfect sound! This particular model allows you to adjust the color of the display, so this was the closest to the DIC panel. Trim panel also fit with no modification, and antenna works as it should.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Cadillac Owners Forum
4.8M posts
369.7K members
Since 2002
Cadillac Forums is the perfect place to go to talk about your favorite Caddys including the ATS, CTS, SRX, Escalade, LYRIQ, Vistiq, concept and future Cadillac models.