VW Stereo Project

The radio that came with the bug was AM-FM, but the speaker setup in VWs is definitely monaural.  And it's a crummy monaural, at that.  The only place Wolfsburg allowed a speaker is to the LEFT of the steering wheel!  Only the driver can hear the radio, everybody else gets to listen to the engine.

After we got the Jimmy, which came with a four channel stereo with tape, we decided the bug needed one, too.  Kate's birthday was coming up, so I decided I'd get her a stereo for the VW.  I did a little shopping, and found a Sony four channel unit at a car stereo shop nearby.  I wanted it to have the music seek function on the cassette, since the Jimmy did, too.  The radio also has a digital clock, and a removable face plate.

The unit I got came with lots of instructions, but only one sixth of them were in English.  My Italian, Japanese, Vietnamese, Spanish, and German aren't all that great, so the extra languages weren't of much use.  I decided I wanted the front speakers in the doors and the back speakers in the kick panels under the rear seat.  Naturally, I took off the positive terminal of the battery before I started digging around in the dashboard.  I removed the old radio and found that the new one needed a trim ring in order to not fall into the dash!  Will there ever be a job that doesn't require two trips to the store??

I got the trim piece and found that IT needed trimming in order to fit.  A wood rasp came in handy there.  The radio unit itself fits into a socket that you mount in the dash first.  That contains all the hookup wiring.  The fuse box in the VW is below the dashboard, so it's not hard to get to, but the little plastic cover that protects the fuses from knees, etc., won't stay on any more.  Once you remove the fuse cover, the electrical terminals are pretty easy to work around.

The radio required two electrical connections:  one directly to the battery and one switched through the ignition.  With a service manual and about 90 minutes of study, I figured out where those connections were.  I added a lug to the ground wire and added that to the ground stud under the dash.  

The front speakers, as I already mentioned, were mounted in the doors, low and forward so they wouldn't interfere with the windows and door latches.  VWs have a handy little pouch there, that some people use for important things like flares and fire extinguishers, but we use it as a litter bag.  I had to use up some of that room on each side of the car.

The door latch comes off by removing the black plastic trim and removing the screw that holds it to the door itself.  The window winder comes off similarly; first you pry the trim out of the way, then remove the screw.  Be careful if you're doing this for the first time yourself!  There's a spring under the window winder to keep it from rattling, and it'll pop the handle right off if you're not careful.  The arm rests come off by taking out the two screws that hold them to the door.  The liner panels are just snapped in, but use some respect for the material when you pull them off.  It's a good grade of cardboard, and it's easy to break it.  If you split out one of the pop-in catches, it won't go back, ever, and you'll end up with an ugly gap between the edge of the liner and the door itself.

Once the liner panels were out, I ran the speaker wire along the bracket that keeps the door from opening too far.  I held it in place with wire ties to minimize the chafing.  I was going to use 18 gauge wire for the speakers, but the radio came with some stuff that seemed like 24 gauge, and it was part of the harness for the radio, so I used the little stuff.  I had to cut some of the door sheet metal out of the way so the speaker would fit.  I also cut the liner panel and mounted the speaker to the liner.  Replacing the liner was just the reverse of removing it.  

I had the opportunity to make the window winders end up in the same direction when the windows were up, and I placed both of them directly forward.

The rear speakers were a little different.  If you've checked out some of the other projects, you know I glued down a carpeting kit.  The only way to get speaker wires to the back of the car is under the carpet, or under the floor pan.  With the convertible, there's no headliner channel to route any wiring through, so I had to pull up the carpeting that covers the kick panels on each side of the car.  In order to do that, I had to pull the front seats.  Actually, I wish I had done that to begin with, since it made a lot more room inside the car.

The rear kick panels are also a heavy grade of cardboard, which you can cut with a good utility knife.  One thing I missed, though, is the battery.  VW batteries are under the passenger side of the back seat.  That makes it nice and close to the starter, but there really isn't enough room between the front of the battery and the kick panel to mount a speaker, even the thin ones made for tight spaces.  I ended up with the passenger side speaker bulging out slightly, even though I had moved the battery as far back as I could.  It's not the tidiest job I've ever done, but you have to look for it to see it.

So, with the speakers installed, I hooked up the battery, put the seats back in and installed the head end unit.  It has a switch on it to note whether or not the car has an "accessory" position on the ignition switch.  It's supposed to have something to do with draining the battery, but I couldn't see that it made any difference either way.  When you slide the head end in, it locks in place with barb-type latches.  You can release them with a special tool provided with the unit.  I turned on the ignition and the radio worked.  I set the time on the clock, set the buttons for the stations we listen to (actually, there is one AM set, two FM sets, and about four short wave sets.  The two FM sets are identical, and there's nothing to pick up on the short wave but WWV, and that's not very clear here in Southern California.).  I turned off the radio, then turned it back on to see if it would remember my settings and it did, so I figured the job was done.

The next day, Kate told me that all the stations were gone and the time was 12:00.  Hmm.  I was stumped.  I was pretty sure I'd followed all the instructions, and the only thing that didn't seem to make sense was whether or not there was an accessory position on the ignition.  I pulled the head end out and changed that switch, reprogrammed everything (I wrote it down this time) and again, turned off the ignition and everything seemed fine.

It's never that easy, is it?  Again, all the presets were lost in the morning.  I started doing some checking.  I set one station, then turned off the car for 10 minutes.  The station setting was gone.  I tried it again for five minutes, with the same results.  Even if I only waited one minute, I lost the preset.  I must have done something wrong, and it had to be the power.  Out came the volt meter, and sure enough, my power connections were swapped.  The ignition switched wire was direct to the battery, and the direct line was switched with the ignition.  Of course, by the time I had gotten this far, the wires were almost too short to move around, but I was able to get them connected properly, and the radio has been working fine ever since.

What I'd do differently

The speakers in the rear don't fit well and they're still hard to hear clearly be rear seat passengers.  I would try harder to mount them in the side panels, maybe losing the ash trays.  I've found that you can get speaker mounting systems for the front seats that mount the speakers further forward, so they're not using up space in the door.  I don't know how they sound, but the black speakers in the white door panels are quite obvious, and subject to water damage.  The other system would keep both of those situations from being a source of concern.

Oh, yeah.  I'd wire the power correctly, too.

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