[gjarnos]

Hey yall. I'm attempting to add an auxillary port to my 1999 Catera with a 3.5 mm plug. I've taken out the stereo and it's an all in one Bose unit with a single disk CD player and a tape deck. I've read that it's possible to find the Left channel audio and the Right channel audio and ground that leads to the CD player in order to bypass it and hook up your own aux jack. If anyone has done this on this model stereo that would be awesome. I know it's fairly easy if you have a CD changer but I don't. Also if you have an XM set up it's easy
too. I'm stuck splicing wires it seems. Let me know if my assumptions are wrong. I've been looking around at the integrated circuits on the PCB's to figure out where the audio lines are but I'd appreciate help and/or the solution if someone has done it before. Some pictures below:

Model of the stereo:

Full shot of the CD player board. The red wires that plug into the main board go into the bottom right of this shot.

Close up of a chip on the CD player board.

One chip on the CD player board itself.

Wide shot of the main board. Red wires on the bottom go to the CD player.

This is an integrated circuit I can't seem to find the pin out specification for. I would love help if someone knows where to find it.

Close up of where the CD player wires connect on the main board.

Bottom of the mainboard. You can see here the CD player wires which are red at the top only have 5 traces connected.

 

[globuslive]

Hi gjarnos. I have fm transmitter in one of my cateras, works ok, but with some extra noises sometimes. I also have RadioShack box that splits antenna , but it seems to be better stuff, but I never connected it to comment on quality. The thing with cd is you have to have cd mode activated to be able to receive any input signal imo, I'm not sure how Bose board is designed, but that what I would assume, otherwise you won't have any input for cd, and if you put cd you obviously get cd signal too, with no cd in tray it won't stay in cd mode, if that makes sense. Best bet to be honest is to get double din decent radio with all these modern features. That's what I would do if I was hunting quality sound with connectivity. I have pioneer head in my other catera, and someone before me did all wiring in the amp side, so I just swapped unit itself. Hope it helps

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[CSIMME01]

I did this a long time ago.
I interfaced at the volume knob. Low level audio went through the volume pot. I added a aux jack that disconnected the signal to the pot when you plugged in the cable. Just left radio on FM and plugged in cable to get aux input.

 

[globuslive]

I did this a long time ago.
I interfaced at the volume knob. Low level audio went through the volume pot. I added a aux jack that disconnected the signal to the pot when you plugged in the cable. Just left radio on FM and plugged in cable to get aux input.

So knob doesn't control the volume when aux plugged in? Do you just control it from the source ?

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[CSIMME01]

No. The aux jack disconnected the radio's low level audio going ino the volume knob and connected the aux input in its place. That way the aux input did go through the volume knob.

 

[gjarnos]

I ended up wiring directly into the CD player R and L channel which works but the lows in the sound are generally lost as there is some coil whine in the sound when you hit the accelerator in the car. Works but not great and not good enough for me to use.