If you're reading this, you're probably like me. You own a SAAB, you want to install an aftermarket audio amplifier in it, but you don't want to pay $80 dollars to get the proprietary cable from the dealer. Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult to obtain the connector used on the OEM radio, so I went a different route, and it only cost me maybe $10 in supplies from Radio Shack.
You will need:
The first step is to take the 4 pieces of hookup wire and strip each end of them, exposing about 1/3". Then solder one end of each wire to one of the terminals on the RCA jacks, one wire per terminal. Once this is done, crimp the two wires that connect to the rims of the RCA jacks into a single crimp-on connector. The rims of the jacks are the ground connections, and the ground is shared on the connector in the radio. Crimp the two remaining connectors to the two remaining wires. Now take the lengths of uninsulated wire and crimp them into the other side of the crimp-on connectors. Bend the uninsulated wire at a right angle right where it comes out of the connector. At this point you should have something that looks like the following.
You'll note that I've labeled which wire is for which jack. I recommend you do the
same. At this point, I opted to wrap the hookup wires together with electrical tape.
I can't give you a technical reason for this, it just seemed like a good idea at the
time. If you choose to do so as well, you'll have something that looks like this:
And now you're done. Really! Worth $70, wasn't it? Following are a few pictures
taken while installing the connector into the radio. This was done on a 1995 900S.
Above is a close up of the leads where they go into the side of head unit. I
got the pin-outs from Richard Bevin's great audio site, but I'll cheat and
tell you that the bottom one (left in this picture) is ground, then going counter-clockwise is rear right, then
rear left. I opted to use these since I'm going to be powering the rear speakers and a
sub with my amp. If you need four channels of pre-out, the connector is logically extendible
to that, although it might get a little crowded by the DIN on the radio.
Above shows everything ready to be pushed back into the dash. One end of the connector
is snugly inside the radio, and the other is happily connected to another set of RCA
connectors and cables leading to the trunk. Just to be sure, I used some more electrical
tape to hold the leads inside the radio, just in case they got jostled on their way into
the dash or sometime down the line.
My directions above describe how to create a connector exactly like the one I created, however there might be more efficient ways to do what I did. Specifically, if you have hookup wire that is solid core and 18AWG, you can forego the crimp connectors and extra leads. Just strip the hookup wire, bend it, and you're good to go. I couldn't find any 18AWG solid core hookup wire, so I settled for above. In fact, the wire I used for my leads is old electric fence wire we had sitting in the garage. Hopefully this page has been useful/informative for you, and I hope that your SAAB brings you as much enjoyment as mine has. Cheers!
This page copyright 2004 Steven Walter. It may be freely reproduced and distributed in tact provided this notice is included.