'94 maxima radio removal

[canucklehead]

haven't looked at it that closely, but my radio has a cassette deck, no CD and the display doesn't work so I don't know when i'm tuned to the correct station until they play awful music!

anyways, what is involved to remove this deck? Can I buy some type of adapter to make my Nissan harness hook up to the after-market harness?

[MinisterofDOOM]

The dead display is a pretty common problem. It happened to mine. I managed to fix it for a while by removing the unit and fiddling with it (not even sure what I did, but when I put it back it worked again...for a while). This is with the single-DIN non-Bose unit, right (has the coin tray below it)?

Any auto parts store or car stereo installer should carry the harness adapter to make generic replacement head units work with the car. It's not a big deal, just a simple plug adapter.

To remove it, you need to remove all the center trim: the arm-rest/shifter surround and the cascade facade. Once that's removed, you remove one screw that retains the rack that holds the headunit and coin tray, slide the rack out, and from there you can remove the screws holding the headunit and pull it out. Here's a picture:

By the way, there's no reason to remove the actual shifter trim from the console: the shifter knob will fit through the hole if you rotate the console a bit. Or you can just push the console back a bit and it'll be out of the way enough for the rest of the process.

[canucklehead]

Thanks MOD. hey that's kind of funny, the acronym for your name also = your mod status!!

I MOSTLY listen to the traffic report station on AM and could almost get away with just a radio. I ditched all my cassettes almost 20 years ago. 8 track....MAYBE! of course, my wife will insist on CD. And you can pick up something decent for under $100, so what-the-hey.

you are correct, I am the non bose system. I'm not looking for a boom box system, but how are the stock speakers in these?

[PBfrEAk]

My car has the bose and I didn't care for the stock speakers.

You can get a cheap HU and some decent speakers for under 180 bucks I'm sure.

But MAKE SURE you buy a semi-decent HU otherwise it will sound like ****. A cheap Pioneer from Walmart will definitely do the trick.

[canucklehead]

I bought a Panasonic from Walmart and it's a decent unit. I've had good luck with panasonic. I think i have a 3 year old JVC in my camper, I might just use that one.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Stock non-bose speakers are decent. Nothing special, but not bad. They'll do well with any aftermarket headunit.

[tmorales509]

Its real easy to remove the radio. I few screws like show in that pic. And yea you can get a wire adapter for like $10 to install a aftermarket headunit.

[canucklehead]

well, now that this job is done, I can share some insight that will hopefully save someone else the hassles I had.

1)thanks for that pic MOD; it saved me from breaking stuff. To those like me that didn't know...the plastic trim screw covers only partially pop off, you don't pry them off all the way. they sort of hang loose with a plastic hinge, and then you remove them with the screw, as one piece.

2)WOW, I get so frustrated when I buy an item specific to my application and then the instructions are lacking. There is an adapter wiring harness available that splices from the after-market CD player (mine is JVC) to the adapter. Then the adapter plugs into the factory plugs. I soldered and shrink-tubed everything, so no worry about poor connections. But they leave out a few important points:

The Nissan plug is 2 parts, one is a 6 pin connector and the other is a 10 or 12 pin connector. The larger connector has a wire that lines up with the ground wire from the JVC. Well, it must not be ground to frame, because after I connected it, I had no power. I had to splice in a jumper after the 2 grounds were mated, and ground it to the chassis. SInce the plastic trim pieces were all out of the way, there was a good screw by the shifter that I put a ring connector on. I'm not sure if you can bypass the factory wire that mates up with the JVC ground wire. Maybe that would work too. Basically,I have all 3 connected= the JVC ground+the Nissan "ground" on the harness, and then a jumper to the actual chassis/frame.

Okay, so we got ground figured out. Then I had no rear speakers. This is where the wiring instructions that came with the adapter are useless. The 6 pin connector from Nissan has 6 wires, 4 of which are speakers. I'm pretty sure Nissan built in some kind of amp for the rear speakers only, to punch up the sound, a lot. Not sure of Nissan's wire colors, BUT...the adapter leaves a black wire and a blue and white striped wire disconnected. I thought the black wire was ANOTHER ground, but it seems to make no difference whether it's connected or not, so I left it disconnected.

IMPORTANT: The rear speakers will NOT WORK unless you connect that blue and white wire from the adapter to the same blue and white wire from the JVC. ALSO, the solid blue wire from the 12 pin connector also gets spliced into this connection so you can have your power antenna work. I think it acts like a power wire for the amp to the rear speakers, and also, power for the automatic antenna.

3)ANTENNA...MAKE SURE YOU BUY AN ADAPTER!! Nissan uses some proprietary antenna connection that only fits their stereo. I had to go back to the store and buy an adapter to plug the Nissan antenna into the adpater, then the adapter had a standard antenna wire to fit the JVC.

4)I also bought a special car stereo dash mount kit. NOT NEEDED!! Luckily, my JVC had the exact same holes that the factory stereo had used to get mounted on the mounting bracket. This was a relief, because I wanted to keep my tray and cup holder. I'm going to guess most after-market, japanese type stereos will have these same mounting holes. BONUS!!

Removing the factory stereo from the mounting bracket was tough. The Phillips heads beg to be stripped. I had to pound an impact driver onto those heads. I probably ruined an already broken factory stereo. Oh well, it was a useless POS anyways! Interestingly, all my factory components (speakers and cassette player) are Clarion.

I sure would like to disconnect that rear amp somehow and still have the rear speakers work..but not at the expense of investing time to run new wire to the JVC. As it is, the rears won't work unless you hook up the blue and white wire (not Nissan's color code). But the built in amp in the JVC + the rear amp is too much and it sounds distorted at medium volume, and you loose the fronts because the rears are so overpowering.

[PBfrEAk]

I bought a Panasonic from Walmart and it's a decent unit. I've had good luck with panasonic. I think i have a 3 year old JVC in my camper, I might just use that one.

I actually meant Panasonic...I just now realized I typed Pioneer.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Oops, I meant to mention the antenna, sorry about that.

As for the adaptors and poor instructions, we just went though that a couple weeks ago with my dad's Trailblazer. The TB was a HUGE PITA because somewhere in the middle of the model the whole wiring system was revamped, and stores kept trying to sell us a ~$120 adapter to work with GM's ridiculously stupid new all-integrated harness that ties the radio to the airbag and a bunch of other stuff--so you can't splice anything. It's that way for OnStar but is still a bad idea. But even when we bought the specialized adapter (finally getting the earlier non-Onstar one that his truck needed) the instructions were totally generic--obviously the same exact instructions included in every single splice-it-yourself adapter they make.

This is what is in my Maxima right now:Was pretty high-end back in '03 when I got it. Still a nice HU now. I prefer the control layout to a lot of the more oddball modern HUs, especially those RETARDED Alpine units. I despise Alpine.

[PBfrEAk]

...especially those RETARDED Alpine units. I despise Alpine.

I like MY alpine HU, it's not a close pic...but you get the idea...mines simple and very easy to use...

I prefer the "track forward and reverse" to be buttons instead of a knob like yours is.

[D-Maxima]

i like my pioneer. this is cool, the knob is 7-way function. its actually pretty good once you get used to it...it also prevents ppl from playing around with it!

[MinisterofDOOM]

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c148/ ... ure009.jpg

I like MY alpine HU, it's not a close pic...but you get the idea...mines simple and very easy to use...

I prefer the "track forward and reverse" to be buttons instead of a knob like yours is.

Mine are actually buttons, too, just on a sort of "D-pad" single button. What I don't like about Alpine is that they put buttons on the left of the volume knob.

Every time I see a picture of your car, I'm amazed at how good the black leather interior looks. That's the only aesthetic thing I'd change about mine...the black leather looks SO much better than the tan cloth in my car.

[D-Maxima]

one annoying thing about aftermarket HU's is that they are all made for US cars....as in driver on the left....seeing as im in AUS its the opposite

its only a small inconvenience but think about it...if you had to reach that bit further you would understand what I mean!

[PBfrEAk]

Every time I see a picture of your car, I'm amazed at how good the black leather interior looks. That's the only aesthetic thing I'd change about mine...the black leather looks SO much better than the tan cloth in my car.

You do realize I have black cloth right?

Or are you just talking about my black dash and steering wheel?

But I just LOVE the look of armor'alled black interior.

I'm actually looking at a white 5spd right now with black leather.

The guy is supposed to call me when he decides a price.

I may just have to drop by for another visit to him...

[MinisterofDOOM]

Hmmm...I was thinking you had leather. Guess I'm confusing your car with another one.

Oh well. Even your black cloth looks better than tan cloth!

[PBfrEAk]

I wish...But yea tan cloth shows dirt easy.

Do you know if there was a grey cloth too?

I have a parts car with "black" interior but all the seats seem MUCH lighter than mine. Still a dark grey...but not nearly black... Its perfect interior though...you wanna buy it??? LOL

I'll give you a GREAT price (name it pretty much...I just want rid of it!!!)

[kwikeklerk]

hey canucklehead,
im trying to install a jcv in my j30t. was your old radio a bose? also the wire harness i have has 2 orange wires where do i connect those i think there for the dimmers. also are you using the same bose speakers?

i have it connected right now. and when i play a cd it doesnt work, it only works when it wants to. and as far as the fm/am that doesnt work at all, and i bought the antenna adapter too.

i need some help.