Hi Eric! That bought back memories... 51 y/o lapsed HiFi freak during the 80s, did some audio work on my own cars as a younger man in the very late 80s / 90s. As a European, we were "lucky" enough to have standard DIN or double-DIN slots back in the day, and the Japanese and Germans were kind enough to supply us with a plethora of aftermarket units to choose from, CD autochangers (remember those?), outboard amps, speakers a-plenty, subwoofers... Ah, those were the days! Anyhow, my main takeaway from that era is that the most important thing (cheapest, too, to start with...) is to replace the OEM speakers with size-compatible, aftermarket quality brand stuff. Now, looking at your truck, space is a premium, and you have to go with what room you have, but honestly, those speakers will not cut it, given their size, no matter how big a magnet they have compared to the originals. Step two, also suggested in other comments, is a subwoofer. Back in the day I used to have a big, tubular thing running off a separate amp., but given the size of your cab, a flatter unit mounted under a seat should provide you with all the bass you need, especially since the human ear cannot "locate" low frequencies, you can mount a sub. basically anywhere you want/can and get good bass. Time was, I went to the trouble of routing huge-gauge wire from the battery to my amps, replace all speaker cabling with higher gauge-stuff (waste of time, effort and money) the whole 9 yards. Youth, eh...? Anyway, speakers first, subwoofer, then maybe amp(s) and head-unit, really depends on what you want from your system. Oh, the total strip-out seems like a golden opportunity to change the carpet, no? Keep those excellent videos coming, greatly enjoyed!
Actually the method is... 1. Unhook wires at radio.... Done... They are in a horrible location and they do nothing but blast you in the ear and ruin sound stage
A handy installers tip for speaker installs or head unit.... anything you leave behind in the dash should be wrapped with bubble wrap or some type of insulation so it won't rattle later. Also install foam tape on both sides of the speaker so the adapter rings don't rattle. It also helps seal the compartment aiding the sound output of the speaker!
For rattles, I like to get foam insulation tape and stuff it between anything I can when I have a dash apart. It stiffens things up and provides some cushion to other areas.
A word of WARNING about cutting the tabs with snips for all watching. If you're not careful, you might deform the rim of the speaker, thus upset the cone, thus mess the tolerance of the magnet/wire system that drives it. Personally, after many fu*kups, i recommend a cutting wheel. Shavings can be mitigated by putting tape on the tabs before cutting.
Those speakers are not worth more than five bucks and that car stereo is it worth more than ten bucks.... It's Chinese made and put in American box and sold for American prices... I looked up
Did this to my 89 chevy 2500 as only my second radio install. Real pain in the butt compared to my first, which was an 06 silverado. Seriously wish this video had come out back then XD
Whew, you got me good, the first view of the entire dash taken apart I thought "not a chance in hell am I replacing these speakers if it takes that much work..."
@Friendzone Boy If it's a sponsored video, I say so at the beginning of the video. I purchased and installed this radio myself. Retrosound did not provide it.
i’m so glad to hear that you call a head unit as well.... because I have friends all the time saying “ I just bought a new deck” and I’m like What the heck is a Deck?! Do You mean Head Unit?!”
I'm saddened that you didn't use speaker wire adapters. They're just small lengths of wire that have connections to accept the factory speaker wire. I used them all the time when I was installing stereos and speakers.
Just recently installed new stereo in my car last weekend, put in one of those self-amplified under-seat subwoofers, fantastic combination with a set of components (with crossovers) in front, can highly recommend underseat sub and components, otherwise your retro look radio is great
Eric, thanks for final posting this video. You have reminded me what a PITA it is to installing a radio. Also, you didn't give a ring endorsement of the radio so I should also thank you for saving me $400. Between the money and the hassle, I am just going to stick with the stock radio. -Alex
Buy the connector that will plug into the factory plug and give you ends to splice into so someone can put the factory unit back in later. These are usually less than 20 bucks, also make a small jumper to go from the speaker to the factory plug for the speakers. Many times the plug wires will pull out of the factory connector going to the speaker and attach to the speakers less wires run, and rattle after install. Many times the connector will come with the kit to install the head unit plastics and one last thing do not power it on without the antenna connected at this is used as a floating ground on many head units.
Was thinking the same, does take the afford of saving the speaker cables, but cuts the main loom and even very short so you cant ever re-solder them... :P
I was thinking the same thing... I believe this one would have worked. www.amazon.com/Scosche-GM02B-Aftermarket-Receiver-1988-2005/dp/B0004FQRLC/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=1994+gmc+truck+radio+harness&qid=1563536136&s=gateway&sr=8-3
I normally do that also, but due to the configuration of this radio I don’t believe there is one available. Also, I don't see what the big issue is about this. I only cut 3 wires. The rest were speaker wires.
@@ericthecarguy Its not a big deal just not the standard way a car stereo is installed. Any place that offers the radio and dash plastic would have the harness in stock as this is a common swap. I did one in mine friends chevy truck about 10 years ago. It's easy to be a critic when you have installed hundreds of alarms, speakers and after market radios. You do you, it's your truck and you can install it any way you want, but this advice was for someone who wanted to use your video as a tutorial. If I wasn't half the chicken I am, afraid of the youtube comments I would make my own videos. Eric you make great entertaining videos and have my upmost respect and I have learned a lot from your content. I just found it funny the wires for the speakers you left to rattle around and then hacked the wires in the dash for the head unit the exact opposite of that a good car stereo installer would do. You installed the sound system like a car mechanic which is what anyone who watches you video would expect. I orders some of those shrink wire connectors those were amazing when installing lights on my tractor to seal out the water. The addition of a cheep base shaker under the seat will solve the base problem and not take up valuable space.
Thanks man getting ready to do a radio swap with my 90 Silverado, looks like a full days worth of work just for the radio. So I am going to do everything inside in addition and make it a 14 day job because those clips look too #$%^ brittle to mess with more than once. Peace out dude. :)
Eric, Great Install & So Glad You Got To Do It! :-) I Bought My GMC Sierra Pick Up 1991 Just 31 Years Ago Brand New & The Speakers Have Always Been Great. 7 Years Ago My Cassette Player w/Graphic Equalizer Went Out Then 6 Years Ago My Radio Went Out But Both Still Light Up. Ok, I am a Old School Man who years ago there were Junk Yards you went into & there was never a cover charge. You found what you needed & took it out & paid the Man with his Trusted Pup who ran & owned the Junk Yard a Dollar Or 5 or 10 Bucks for the small items like a Radio or Cassette player. No big deal. Today where have the Junk Yards gone? Ok there are a few from all 50 states & they only want to take recent model vehicles & parts from them & then put them on a computer listing. So for 7 years have missed all my Cassette tapes I still have & radio stations when I come into a City that still have Radio stations to broadcast from. Yes I have seen my Radio & Cassette player on Ebay & Amazon, ouch, before I pay what they are asking for. OMG I call it in simple terms HighWay Robbery. I have kept my GMC Pick-Up Truck in Minty Condition. It is my life line & living in Rual Mountains of America, has been a real void in my life without music to enjoy. I never have asked for much in my life, the basics have always been enough. So when something from the very basics in life becomes a void, it leaves one feeling empty inside. I just keep inside hoping & praying for that Radio & Cassette player to appear. I never have expected anyone to give me, as have always paid for what I have in life. Was just born & raised different. Have always been a Gifter Forward to others in the journey have & continue to live. If you know of anyone in your networked field of expertise, I would sure be thankful & grateful for the heads up Eric. always, Tommy :-)
I already know how to do this but I always wanna stop bye and show appreciation and love. Me and the kids love watching ur repair videos and the day in the life was awesome keep up the videos hope they don’t end have a great day
Very informative. I'm not super impressed with the fit for a factory replacement. The upside is it looks factory enough to keep your side glass whole in less than optimal parking conditions.
I installed a set of Boston Acoustic plates in the corners of a 90 model when it was new, & I swear I don't remember having to pull all of that to get to the rears. Memory sure fades after 30 years!
This is pretty cool, I like the factory look of this head unit. I'll have to check it out, I know retrosound can be a bit pricey. I doubt Eric will want to dive in to change speakers again but there is actually plenty of room in the trucks for more potent speakers I used a set of 4 Rockford Fosgate speakers and the fit just as easy as these low profile units, and honestly I don't feel like I need a sub in my single cab.
Those rear speakers remind me of when I helped my Dad replace the rear speakers in a Toyota Previa. There were grilles that if they were removable you could pop them off and get right to the speakers...you could see the screws through the grille, but nope. EVERYTHING back there had to come off to pop the side panels off enough to get to the speakers.
In my car, I wanted everything to be as bone-stock as possible - including not cutting or damaging any factory wiring. So when I replaced the speakers (the originals were dry rotted and not functional anymore), I bought wiring harnesses that plug into the factory speaker connector and then the other end has the connectors that match aftermarket speakers. Also helps ensure you get positive and negative connected properly. Keeps things cleaner and preserves your factory wiring setups. For the Chevy C/K, I believe this is the harness you would need: www.amazon.com/DKMUS-Harness-Vehicles-Speakers-Connector/dp/B01MZ5KDGT
Ahh EricTheCarRadioGuy, i think you did great :-D I'm not too happy with those crimp connectors, maybe adjust the tool for a better crush. I like the channel in the rubber door seal. shame that all cars don't have them.
I have a new solution over crimp connectors that will be in next weeks videos. In my experience it’s all about the tool. A good crimp tool makes all the difference.
By watching this series I gained enough spazzz to attack an old 99 chevy sitting around. He started this dads truck thing 5mths ago, I watch for about 4 videos and could stand myself so I started in on it and low and behold I have an old truck that starts and drives between the lines and tells which way it going. OH! it stops too. Eric you're good reel good I mean.
Hey Eric, good work. that blue power antenna wire is used for you amp remote turn on. And that is 1 reason I ALWAYS solder and heat shring my wiring harness for car stereos, well really for almost everything. I'm sure you know all that but anyway. That is a killer setup, always wondered what to put in those model trucks for stereo with like no dash room. You did a great job buddy, keep up the great videos.
awesome! If you need some bass, maybe think about a small shallow mount powered subwoofer? I had one under the seat of my ford ranger, kenwood KSC-SW11, it sounded good and not so loud that people outside can hear it and won't shake the mirrors, just adds some bass, later!
When leaving old factory wiring harnesses unused: Wrap the end in electrical tape: It'll reduce the amount of rattling and noise it makes while hanging down there inside the body. I'm sure there is probably an even better method, but odds are anyone installing a radio or speaker or tearing open their dash has some electrical tape on hand, and the tiny bit of compression it adds to the surface can go a long way to quieting all those tiny little impacts it makes with the metal as you drive around. Also, I tend to label any custom wires I add with masking tape and a Sharpie. May not be legible in 10 years, but if I come back in 5 years, I'll know what's what at first glance.
Was wondering who that 'slim chap with the beard' is...it's 'Eric The Car Guy'...So used to watching videos made in winter seeing you in a shirt caught me out...I need to sort out the 'Tunes' in my van...it's about number 360 of the 'fixes' needed at the moment...One day, Eric...ONE DAY!!
Not sure if you’re aware of this but on GMs and Fords you insert the key into the ignition and turn it one click backwards for the accessible mode. Not sure if that allows you to turn the wheel but it does allow you to turn on the radio and roll the power windows up and down. Just an FYI, but I’m sure as a mechanic you probably already knew that.
Im impressed how you tackled the installation, awesome!... But Im baffled as to how this audio/speaker kit didn't "plug and play" with the installation on your particular truck, even though it was designed to be applied to that make and model (if i understand correctly). I mean, the speakers didn't quite fit with the holes, the amp was made even though there was a shortage of space for the application... Im really scratching my head on this one - they made a stereo system kit/upgrade that alas didn't fit naturally to the trucks' fixtures and holders... Kinda disappointed (towards the manufacturer), as though they lied that it is made for this truck. 😟
I'm surprised that the radio he chose didn't locate the "amp" in the factory location. Crutchfield has a better install kit that uses the factory wiring for whatever radio you chose. Including a color matched center vent replacement to locate the radio there (where the tape player was). The side pillars to get to the rear speakers are no longer being produced. use EXTREME caution. The A pillars are still available, but you will have to dye/paint to match. All the "major" speaker makers sell stock location speakers that you simply screw in... no cutting, or funky "hold down" brackets like that no name brand Eric used. I went with center radio and Boston Acoustic speakers. I used the radio delete pocket to mount two extra gauges there. Most trucks wont have that storage pocket behind the seat, just the jack holder. It's a good time to replace the carpet at the same time... everything that needs to be removed will be out of the way. Kill two birds with one stone. IMHO, ETCG made this look harder then it actually is.
Yep, installing radios can be frustrating - but you make it look (sort of) easy. As always. And remember two things: it beats shoveling shit in Lousiana, and 2) nothing's complicated unless you complicate it. Thanks for making complex stuff uncomplicated. Now take a break. Hell, take two - they're small.
GM Engineers designed the beautiful 88-98 Chevy trucks.... but they made it hard / rediculous to replace rear speakers, you basically have to take the whole rear clip off just to replace those 4 by 6 speakers, which equals a lot of plastic broken clips...why? what for!! what were they thinking....all you had to do was put/ create speaker grills for the rears like you did for the front speakers, it would have been a whole lot easier... Nah.... but that just makes too much sense to do it that way.✌
That adapter for " the better model radio" as you put it was for your truck. It's the female end for the plug that goes into the stock radio so you would not need to cut any of the stock wiring like you did. But hacking up the stock harness works too, it's just the next guy will have a pain in the ass to put it all right. Nothing bad about your method I've done it myself in the past all I'm saying is you didn't have to cut up the harness.
You're incorrect on that, there is another radio that uses that harness like I said tin the video. It's only your opinion that I 'hacked' this wiring harness. Everything I did works great. Lastly, do you really think someone is going to go through all the trouble to put crappy speakers and a crappy stereo back in this truck? Thanks for the comment.
I've come to find that you were correct in your original comment about the harness. As for 'hacking up the harness', I really don't think it would be all that difficult to reconnect 3 wires if someone wanted to put this back to stock someday.
A little confused that you left the speaker wires so if someone wanted to restore it back to factory then those would be there. Then you cut the power wires instead of getting an adapter for after market radios. Besides that, thanks for showing me how to take my interior apart.
if something is made to be specific to this truck, like that headunit it really should be a plug and play from the start, you shouldn't need to cut anything, those speakers should have come with stock plugins soldered on them and that headunit just plug right in and mount the amp in the old location and instructions on how to route the wiring to the different parts. it's one thing if it's a universal setup, but this was built specifically for this vehicle and nothing else. Side note for the FIRST time in doing radio installs, having done at least 8 head unit installs (8 different cars not 8 different headunits) over the years I finally ran into a similar setup to this, Helping my brother install his headunit we soldered and heat shrunk the harness of the new radio to the adapter harness, went out to the truck to plug it in and the plug was different, thinking we made mistake number 1 of radio installs (not checking the harness first) we went to every parts place in town looking for an adapter that fit the plug that came out of the stock radio, we don't find one (just ones like we already have) and so we head back to my house to go looking online, as a last ditch effort (because his wife really wanted everything hooked up so she could finally get her subwoofer) we are checking every wire in that area of the dash, this is when I notice the wire that we have now confirmed did indeed go to the headunit (oddly one of the wires that went to the dash trim panel around the stereo also fit one of the 2 stereo plugs), I follow that wire down and it goes to a silver box, I reach down and feel 2 plugs going into the other side of the box, so we unbolt and remove the box, sure enough there are the plugs we have been looking for for connecting our wire harness to.
Actually, the harness I thought was for the "Newport" radio was an adapter to plug into the factory wiring harness. That said, I don't consider it a big deal that I cut 3 wires to hook it up. Thanks for your comment.
You can use a 9v or 12v battery to verify speaker lines. It will make a quick "pop" sound and just listen for where it is coming from. You also could have used speaker harness adapters and not have to run speaker lines. I might add, that "newport" connector was actually an adapter so you did not have to cut the factory radio harness.
Eric the car guy. Not Eric the stereo guy. Awesome video. Was curious about this radio for my gmt400. However am disappointed to find I’ll have to remove the left front tire and rear bumper to install it🤷🏻♂️
I bet you would get better bass if you put the stock speakers back in the back pillars. I did a similar thing when I had a GMC Sonoma and replaced all the speakers with 2-way speakers. Same problem, very little bass, and too tinny. I ended up swapping my door speakers (came equipped with door and dash speakers) back to the factory ones and it was much better.
Actually Eric, if you had taken that white pigtail and spliced that to the radios wiring, this would have been a plug and play installation. Even using the factory speaker wires. Not really hurting anything doing it this way, just thought id let you know that.
If you purchase your audio components from Crutchfield, they would give you the adaptor plugs for the speakers. I like to solder then pigtails to the speakers, and then they are just plug and play with the stock wiring. That speaker wire that comes with the new speakers is crappy.
the way he did things was time-consuming and goes against everything I was ever taught. Never cut stock wiring and use adapters. That way if you ever sell you can reinstall the stock equipment. But the cost of the equipment my Brothers and I use make replacing it for our new vehicles hard to swallow.
He could have gotten an adapter pigtail to avoid cutting the main radio harness too, so he could have avoided having 18 heat-shrinkable butt splices shoved under the dash. This was 16 year old high schooler with his first radio level hackery.
