1993 Premium sound stereo into 87-92 Mustang : Install thread

There was a guy in eBay that sold the oem radios with an AUC jack in. Haven't seen any in a while, but that's something I'd like to add to my CD player at some point. However low on my list to do since I never actually listen to the radio
 
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I just pulled one of those amps out of the 93 I just picked up, figured someone might want it for a resto. Car had a rats nest of aftermarket stuff from the 90's trying to bypass it and only one working speaker. the amp and wiring is all intact if someone local to NJ needs one. No way of test it so rather not to ship it. you can reach me at [email protected]
 
Here are the wiring mods you need to make:


Below is the main power connection. plug on the left is the AMP Harness plug that comes off the 1993 amp harness you just installed. Plug on the right is the body harness in your car. Got it? Good..now notice the differences in wiring.

Looking on the body harness side, we have the following wires

green/yellow - constant 12V
yellow/black - accessory 12v
blue/red - dimmer
orange/black - illumination ( i beleive for the bulb in the display of the 87-92 radio)
RED - GROUND

The orange/black wire is not needed anymore with the 1993+ radios, so don't worry about it. But notice that on the amp harness side, there is one wire not connected to anything. The white one?

That's the AMP Power wire...kinda important. As you can see, it's not connected to anything. According, to the 1993 Mustang EVTM, it's constant 12V. I don't really want the amp powered 24-7, so i jumped a fused wire from the white wire on the left, to the yellow/black wire on the right.

And that's it...one jumper wire and you are good to go.

View attachment 65790

The speaker colors are all mixed up, but don't worry. I spent an hour tracing them out with a 9V battery to be sure...they match up fine. HOWEVER, if your 87-92 Mustang is a non-premium car, you might lose the door speakers. They are wired in parallel with the dash speakers. In that case, you will need to run wires from the doors and tap into the dash speakers. More on this in the SPEAKERS post
I know this is an old post but it’s proving SUPER helpful!!! In the aforementioned fused wire jump. What size fuse should it run?

thanks!
 
I know this is an old post but it’s proving SUPER helpful!!! In the aforementioned fused wire jump. What size fuse should it run?

thanks!

SO the 1993 cars and the 87-93 cars are wired differently. In 1993, ford ran a dedicated power wire to the amp which had a 20A fuse. This is fuse #17

For the 87-93 cars, the amplifier was powered off the accessory wire of the radio which was a 15A fuse for that circuit. Fuse 17 was not used for 87-93.


I chose to use a 15A fuse on this jumper to the amp and that has never blown. A better method might be to run a wire to the fuse 17 location and add a 20A fuse. That method might be more correct but not sure if it's necessary. Your call really.

I might edit my post to reflect this
 
I know this is an old post, but it helped greatly in my decision to install a newer factory radio into my 1991. I got a non-premium standard Cassette deck from a 1995 Escort. It has the correct trim for correct fitment into the fox mustang. Ford F-150 & bronco also have the correct trim just FYI. The OP was correct on it needing a second ground for the night illumination to work. On the grey plug, wire 7 is not in the plug on the 87-92 mustangs because it is not used. All you have to do is add a wire to your current plug (i cut the harness off the car i removed the radio from at the Pick your part & took out one wire and added it to my connector) I then connected it to wire 3 which is also a ground. Works perfectly. Night lights and dimmer. I used the Cubby from my factory 91 radio and just switched radio bottoms, I also found a non cassette only am/fm that also worked, thats pictured. Kind of like the look of the non cassette.
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I found the same radio. I bypassed the factory amp and plugged it in. Everything powers on, except the display reads "tape". This confused me because there is no tape player on the radio. I for some reason cannot get it to switch to AM/FM. I think i got a defective radio. I don't believe there is any kind of reset to make this switch to AM/FM. I will be returning the radio to the ebay seller. Its a shame, it arrived in a factory sealed FORD box. It has never been use.
 

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I found the same radio. I bypassed the factory amp and plugged it in. Everything powers on, except the display reads "tape". This confused me because there is no tape player on the radio. I for some reason cannot get it to switch to AM/FM. I think i got a defective radio. I don't believe there is any kind of reset to make this switch to AM/FM. I will be returning the radio to the ebay seller. Its a shame, it arrived in a factory sealed FORD box. It has never been use.

I wonder of you popped that face plate off if you would find a tape deck?

Hitting AM/FM should take it out of tape mode if it was a tape deck.
 
I’ve pulled a bunch of these radios apart (in an attempt to learn how to repair them as I have a few 93 CS players to repair) but I don’t think there is interchangeable components. That’s why I’m curious on the internals.

Of course if you are returning it I wouldn’t bother disassembling.
 
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I’ve pulled a bunch of these radios apart (in an attempt to learn how to repair them as I have a few 93 CS players to repair) but I don’t think there is interchangeable components. That’s why I’m curious on the internals.

Of course if you are returning it I wouldn’t bother disassembling.
I ended up grabbing another radio from the junkyard out of a 1992 taurus. This time it had a tapedeck. worked great for a few days and then it started going back and forth from am/fm to tape on its own but just for a split second. Then i started to think, do I have some sort of short? At one point yesterday, it went from tape to "TELE" which I have never seen before. I didn't even think that was an option in 1992. After I turned the car off and back on everything went back to normal. It no longer does the tape to am/fm thing and I have not seen a TELE since that one time. Just wanted to share my experience since it seemed somewhat unique.
 
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@Mustang5L5 I've put a picture on here of the amp end of my 1993 Mustang Premium Sound wiring harness connectors. Which illustration/s above are these connectors? Do I have to use a '93 Mustang Premium Sound Amp or can I use one from a later Ford like F150 as long as the connectors are the same?
93mustampcons.jpg


I believe they are compatible, but i'm not 100% sure. I'm 99% sure. Reason I say that is because I am using a 97 Contour CD player that I "converted" to work in my fox mustang with the fox amp. Works fine even though the radio is from a later car. I've also tested out an Mach 460 from a 2000 Mustang with the 1993 amp and it worked

So with that said, i believe the amps will interchange assuming the connectors are all compatible. Some of those amps do have different inputs on them
 
Decided it was time to dig into my stack of broken radios. I found some reference material. At some point I’ll PDF these.

But based off what I found in here, adding bluetooth seems relatively easy. I bought a $10 module. I’m gonna cobble together a test radio and see if this is as easy as it seems. 5 solder connections. 2 for power and 3 for sound output.

I’ve got a manual/schematic for the 93 tape deck as well as amplifier as well. Might clean this thread up a tad and possibly start a new one.

F32F-18C821-AA is the part number for the CD mechanism for the 93 radio.
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ok. I’ve identified two potential locations to tap into with a Bluetooth module.

Into the tape/CD output, or at the rear slave cd input.

Pros and cons of both but I need to experiment. The cons of using the tape/cd output is you need to use a dummy tape or blank cd that just plays no sound.

Instead, I want to see if I can use the slave cd input, but I think this requires a trigger as well.

I’ve got stacks pages of diagrams and info. Going to grab one of my junk radios and try it. Stay tuned.
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I need to go through this thread and update some stuff I’ve learned from this
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I've been doing some research on this as well. Using the slave CD port, if possible, does seem to me to be maybe the "cleanest" way to do things, especially if you had access to the plug that those CD changers would have used (although it's not a requirement).

Regarding the dummy CD/Tape - I was also turned off by the idea that the mechanism has to be sitting there running for essentially no reason. Ultimately I feel like there should be a better way to bypass those mechanisms without having to have them just running all the time.
 
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Got mine plugged in. Powers on, static for the radio (which I shaved my antenna so that is no surprise of course) but also have the dreaded "CD Error" message when I put in a CD. The unit does accept and eject the CD however, so there is that.

I think I am going to take it apart and look for signs of damage. I also read about other Ford CD players having the CD error issue (although information seems VERY limited on these units in particular) so I may start with taking the ribbon cables out and cleaning them with Alcohol and using a Q-Tip and some alcohol to clean the lens on the laser and see what happens. I imagine the death of them is if the little electric motor that moves the laser is burned out. If there are plastic gears that have deteriorated perhaps those could be replaced or 3D printed.