Sound deadening makes a big difference, i had it done to the boot of my 280CE when i had it. Unfortunately i never got around to carpetting over the dynamat and the car was sold. Heres the result

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Did you put Dynamat in other parts of the car, too, or just in the trunk?

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

Only got to do the trunk, would've cost me an arm and a leg to do more, but i didn't feel like much more needed to be done, only due to the fact that i had a custom parcel shelf with sub ports built into it i had to get the boot dynamat.

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Eric, some questions for you since I just ordered a Dual from Amazon --

Crutchfield lists it as "does not fit", did you have any installation problems?

Did you use the Mercedes plug for anything (power, antenna power, etc.)? If so, what adapter did you use? Most of the German cars I've worked with have used a Blaupunkt/VW style.

If you used other sources for your non-speaker connections, what did you use?

What speakers did you use for the dash?

Thanks,
Tim Irwin
'83 300D

None at all - the sleeve fit the opening perfectly...any single DIN chassis should work in there. I didn't do anything beyond the usual slipping in, bending tabs, etc

no adapters for me; I used butt splices to connect directly to the wires back there. I detailed the wiring experience "elsewhere" but I'll repeat it here, after the next question


Pyramid 4477 3-ways. 40oz magnet, 90W RMS power handling. The low end response is about the best you'll find in the 4" cone size at a $25 price point for the pair and being 3-ways, the mid and high detail is pretty nci as well.

You have to pass them up from below and wiggle them over the top of the vent hoses, but they'll fit and mounting them below the deck like that, no cutting of the grilles is necessary only your ears will know the difference. =)



WIRING:

If your center console fader is still in the picture, those 4 speakers wired in parallel with a common ground will provide a 2ohm load to your new head's amp and it probably won't put up with that for very long, plus modern heads have fader controls onboard so I'd recommend definitely taking the factory fader out of the equation and getting all of the wires up to the radio where you wil forever have all the options you need. I didn't run new wires to the speakers - the factory wires were a heavy-enough gauge and all in good condition.

Here's the basics of the factory wires:

Brown = Ground -
Black = Switched Ignition +
Red = Always on + (memory)
Grey = Dash Lights (dimmer)
Blue = power antenna

If the fader's still in place, the speaker wires you'll find behind the radio are;

Red+ Black- Left Speaker (goes to fader on console)
Green+ Black- Right Speaker (goes to fader on console)

To bypass the fader:
. remove the ashtray
. remove the two screws from the ashtray mount and pull that out
. the center console slides back an inch or two and can then be lifted. One mine, the front corners had to be bent slightly (be careful not to break anything) to come out from under the plastic bits and be careful with the back (the end closer to the armrest) - there's a pin at the very rear that goes into a hole in the console mount - if this pin isn't fully free of the hole and you yank up, you'll break something

There is a plug on the bottom of the fader unit that has 6 wires going to it - 4 speaker + and two common grounds. Pull the connector off the switch and snip the wires off the connector and then pull that entire sheathed bundle back up under the console into the hole behind the radio spot. I had to remove a large zip tie near the shifter and there was masking tape around a few of the wire bundles way underneath that I basically had to tug that bundle out of. I couldn't see the tape and was unsure at first what was holding the bundle... I didn't use any real pulling force until I was sure I had to.

Once you have the whole bundle available, carefully remove the sheath from the wire bundle and what you need to do from there is pretty obvious. Clip the connectors at the ends of the wires you find joined and you'll end up with the original red, green, black, black set completely unhooked and 4 pairs of wires that go directly to speakers. I did some extra cutting at this point to make even-length pairs as they were all different lengths in the bundle so that the splice points weren't all in one place. I left the individual pairs different lengths, but do whatever works for you. You'll have plenty of wire to work with when you're done freeing them

I won't mention wire colors - they seemed to vary a lot from year to year and I know at least on mine, the colors were hard to discern anyway. The fronts on mine were pretty obvious; they were the pair that just disappeared left and right behind the dash - the rears disappeared back into the wire bundle under the console. A quick test of one of these pairs told me which one it was which made the other obvious. It was all straightforward butt splices from there on out and everything was good to go.

My Dual is in and working. My wiring turned out to be:

Red - Switched power
Brown - ground
Black - antenna

There wasn't a constant power or dimmer attached to the radio. I found an unused constant power plug taped to the cigarette lighter wire that works quite well. I'll probably use that later when I put an accessory outlet in. The Dual doesn't have a dimmer (something I missed when buying it), so the lack of a dimmer wire wasn't too big of a deal.

Sounds only OK so far, but that's due to the speakers I haven't replaced yet.

How do you get the speaker grills off of the dash? I undid the screw and slid it out from under the A-piller, but I couldn't get the front lip out from under the dash.

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Tim Irwin
1983 300D
1994 Miata R Package
unnamed family car

kinda how I felt about it. would have been nice for for the price, with all of its other features, hard to complain about that part


I got stuck at the same point and a little brute force made it work but I took pictures for the benefit of others... there's one more tab they don't tell you about. Pic attached.

Attached Thumbnails

   

My '82 240D came with 3 blown JVC speakers and a dead Eclipse CD-radio. A neighbor donated an '80s Pioneer cassette-radio (I have a lot of tapes) and matching pair of Pioneer 4" two-way speakers. I installed the Pioneers in the rear shelf and reconnected to one remaining 2" factory Becker dash speaker and the one unblown 2" dash acoustic-suspension JVC installed by the PO. Couldn't really tell much difference between the 2" Becker and JVC, so I installed a pair of factory 3" accoustic-suspension Beckers from a 300D and they made a marginal improvement. The setup is wired through the factory fader and still sounds adequate over the racket my diesel makes at highway speeds. I may upgrade the whole system later on.

Though I like the idea of mounting larger dash speakers from underneath, I don't see any other options to install larger better speakers in the original holes that don't involve cutting interior trim or sheet-metal. Those wanting better sound, but not willing to hack up their cars might consider what I did with my '60 Fintail. That car had no radio or factory speaker holes, so I installed a compact 100-watt amp behind the dash and wired it to an old pair of 50-watt two-way cube speakers that sit on the rear floor behind the front seats. (For those wanting more power, I've seen compact aluminum-cased cube speakers rated over 100 watts at Radio-Shack)
A lighted under-dash toggle-switch powers up the amp, and an adapter-cable connects the amp's twin inputs to the headphone-jack on a portable CD player that I keep in the center tray between the front seats. The nice thing about this setup is the ability to connect any portable music player that has a headphone jack - Ipod, MP3, Satelite-radio, etc... It sounds better than what's in my 240D, and I didn't need to cut any holes in my Fintail!

For those wanting more versatility in a W123 head unit, for very little money, you might consider an older, early-'90s Blaupunkt casette-radio. Since many car owners have upgraded to in-dash CD units, I've seen the Blaupunkts turn up cheap at thrift-stores and flea-markets. I found one - a Blaupunkt Singapore - for $8 and installed it in my other diesel, an '81 240D. These units have a factory-installed aux-input jack, so I can connect my CD player, or an MP3, Ipod etc... And they have large easy-to-use buttons on a simple black faceplate that looks good in my 240D, unlike the glittery 'Hong Kong at Midnite' jukebx look on so many modern radios!

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

I've just begun embarking on my W123 audio upgrade project. . . between job / family / numerous hobbies I decided to let a professional handle the install (since it required rewiring with new speaker cable, etc.).

I had the front speakers replaced with Infiniti Kappa's which fit perfectly under the original speaker grilles in the dash.

My installer built a new rear deck just a few inches higher than the original deck, to allow room for Infiniti Kappa 6 x 9's. This introduces a bit of sorely needed mid-range and a touch of bass to the system. Looks great, he did a wonderful job IMO. I'll post pics this evening.

As much as I did not want to remove the Becker, nobody was clever enough to come up with a good way for me to wire my MP3 player into the mix without a new head unit. So I bought a nice new Pioneer, it fits the bill just fine but I miss the authenticity of having the Becker in the dash.

At any rate. . . . the system used to sound like a 1, on a scale of 1 - 10 (10 being the highest). I'll give it a 5 right now. . . quite a bit of improvement in overall clarity, volume, and dimension.

What's lacking? Mid-range and bass in the front of the cabin. The tiny front kappa's carry a lot of sound for their size, but it's almost all high's (as would be expected).

Ideas? I do not want to cut holes in the doors. I originally thought about having another pair of speakers dropped in down on the kick panels near the floorboards, but with that parking brake cutting so close in I don't know that anything would be possible.

I've also considered a compact subwoofer under the passenger's front seat. . . I see that other's with W123's have gone ahead and placed subs in the trunk, I was worried that good bass would never make it through the trunks of these cars, with the gas tank / tons of metal between the two. My concerns may be unfounded, though. . . thoughts?

Any other creative ideas welcomed. I want to preserve the integrity of the car as best I can, and strive to get a bit better sound yet. I would settle for a 7 or 8 out of 10, but given that this is my daily driver and music is very important to me, I'd like to see what else I can come up with before I give up entirely :-)

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Hello,

I need some help. I'm stuck on my stereo install. Since I've used a lot of the great information in this thread to help me, I thought I would ask my question here.

I can't find an antenna (blue) or dashboard light (gray) wire.

When I bought my 1981 300TD, there was an old ghetto Sony tape deck hanging loose in the slot, It wasn't hooked up in any way, but the wires had obviously been messed with.

I did find one gray wire that has a type of RCA plug on the end of it. Is that the dashboard wire?

Also, there is a yellow wire loose, without any terminations on it that appears to lead to the hazard switch. Not sure what to do about that.


Thanks for any help.

Is the grey wire that has a 'type of RCA plug' kind of fat? If so, it sounds like the antenna cable. The yellow wire that leads to the hazard switch could be a power wire, possibly an always-hot positive feed for the radio memory. Test it with a 12 volt test light to see if there's power with the key off and on.
(If possible, I prefer to wire my car radios to permanent power so I don't need the key)
As for the blue antenna-motor and grey light wires, sounds like the PO did a nice hack-job, and you're going to have to root around inside the console and find the missing wires.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

Thanks.

The gray wire with the RCA plug is kind of fat. I thought it might be the antenna wire, but since it isn't blue, I wasn't sure.

Still can't find the dash light wire.

I guess I need to get out my service manual and figure out how to take the console apart.

Be sure not to confuse the TWO antenna wires we're talking about here. The fat grey cable with the plug that looks like, but actually isn't, an RCA plug, is the antenna's signal feed to the radio. I believe the 'blue' antenna wire you're looking for is the power wire for the antenna motor. Note that my W123 240D has an antenna switch on the dash to manually operate the power antenna. If your W123 has a siimilar switch, you might look there for signs of a blue wire.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

Gotcha.

Thanks.

Bumping this up

My car's HU seems to be going south, flickers a bit sometimes. Wondering about Blaupunkt London MP48 vs Blaupunkt Key West... anyone?

I'm a knob person, I don't like pushing buttons for volume/tuning... been looking around but the Blaupunkt London is too silverish for me, the Key West does not have the aux in feature up front. I like either because of the VarioColor and matches the interior lighting (when I find the right color anyway)...

Your thoughts?

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