need help on j30 audio

[wiggy]

can somebody please help me? Okay i have a 93 j30 i had if for over 3 months now and the radio was working fine and one day the radio just stop working. i check all the fuse and its good so i took the car to a guy and he said he will rewire the whole car for 300 and put a cd player in it for me. What can i do? or how can i fix the radio?

[elwesso]

The J30 head unit is known for failure...

The good news is you can use any bose HU up to 94 from any nissan (that used BOSE) and it will be a direct plug in... you can use the later ones with a $6 adapter....

[wiggy]

thankx man im kinda new to cars and stuff so does that mean i can fix it on my own? or do i have to have somebody professional fix my audio

[DAEDALUS]

Your first thread is in the audio forum.

[atlanta_shooter]

These guys in FL rock! Thought I had a blown rear spkr on my '97 J30, was ready to send it in for repair/replcment, but the guy I talked to there had me ck the cone...$5 bucks later for some epoxy, and I was wide open again. He could have told me it was blown...send it in...and I would be none the wiser!

http://www.carstereohelp.com/

[wiggy]

the guy told me my ampflier is blown and one of the speaker is messed up. how much did you pay to get your stereo repair?

[elwesso]

If you have a bose amp/speaker gone, you might as well just replace everything, IMHO...

[metaverse3]

can somebody please help me? Okay i have a 93 j30 i had if for over 3 months now and the radio was working fine and one day the radio just stop working. i check all the fuse and its good so i took the car to a guy and he said he will rewire the whole car for 300 and put a cd player in it for me. What can i do? or how can i fix the radio?

You have a lot of options as a matter of fact... You can do a bose rewire using pre-amp outputs. I wrote a writeup for it if you would like. Basically you will be using an aftermarket headunit and using the pre-amplified RCA's to push the bose amps at each speakers, literally what your current bose headunit does..when it is not broken (sadly, they don't last as you found out) I have this setup in my J30 using a Pioneer navigation headunit..works better than factory bose.

If you are adventurous, you can remove the bose amps and replace the capacitors. Very cheap fix..a couple of dollars. You can see the capacitors practically leaking.. 4 wires go the amps.. 1 pair is power/ground, the other pair is Positive/negative line driver inputs. This is the widely known bose fix that all online places charge $50-$200 to fix..

For the bose headunit..look here: http://madchef.5u.com/maxima/bose/bose.html This has worked very well for a lot of folks. It can be a mixed bag of nuts since the CD-ERR problem that is dominant on most bose headunits is due to a failed/failing laser pickup mechanism. Usually the flashing display is more predominant to bose systems leaving you in the dark..

The bose system is relay driven at all speaker junctions.. when you switch on the headunit, it gives out a relay trigger signal to all amps/speakers and then line drives them. In plain english, the headunit turns on all the amps through a relay system, and then send out a low line signal to each amplifier which gives you bose sound. You can isolate the headunit wires to each individual speaker location and re-use the wires. I have done it on numerous nissan bose systems with zero issues.. Out of the 2 pairs coming to each door, you are obviously looking for the speaker wire vs the power wire that turns on the amp. Shunt the power wire and then use the speaker wire which leads back to the headunit harness..This is also easy since power wires are coded red/black and are usually thicker, if not always. Use a Multimeter to verify the wires. Everyone will tell you the best way is to run seperate wires to each door. This is time consuming and a waste of labor.. If the factory wires are good enough for the bose, they should be enough for the average listener.

If I were to do this:

$150 decent cd player$15 metra conversion harness$10 antenna adapter

Another option, You can use a 1995 and upwards bose headunit with a retrofit harness like this one: http://www.courtesyparts.com/M...IN-03

People always get gung-ho and want to do the whole car. If your speakers and amps test out good, follow the pre-amp procedure I offered to share above (post here or request it..I will supply the info) If your amps are bad, try the capacitor fix. If your speakers are bad (very rare) replace speakers. I would take the pre-amp rca line-out road since I have experienced it..and use it every day personally..

[elwesso]

I should just post up the email you wrote to me earlier... THAT was thorough!

[Rex]

To be honest with you I can't think of any logical reason (beyond a fuse) that would make the whole thing just stop all of a sudden.

Check out http://www.fuzzycats.com, it's got lots of great J30 info and the site owner is a member here on NICO, IIRC his S/N is carlos_knology.

(1 post please)

[xmateo]

[QUOTE=metaverse3]

You have a lot of options as a matter of fact... You can do a bose rewire using pre-amp outputs. I wrote a writeup for it if you would like. Basically you will be using an aftermarket headunit and using the pre-amplified RCA's to push the bose amps at each speakers, literally what your current bose headunit does..when it is not broken (sadly, they don't last as you found out) I have this setup in my J30 using a Pioneer navigation headunit..works better than factory bose.

I am about to replace my HU now too. Can you tell me if a different harness is needed to bypasses the factory amplifier? Can I just install into the existing brackets too? The space seems pretty big so I don't know that I need to worry about the size, just as long as I have a filler for a normal size aftermarket HU.

Mateo