Stereo!?

dylano

I've recently acquired an 81 Civic Wagon, and I can't seem to find any sort of wiring harness for it to a CD deck.

What do I do?

Should I try and find the wiring diagram for the stock cassette deck, and the one for the CD deck I have and just hard wire it?

What choices do I have?

503Wagon

I'd say get a diagram and probably just hardwire it. You could possibly call your local stereo shop and see if they have a plug n play solution.

1988rt

Dam I just tryed looking on the alldata at my work and it doesnt go that far back

dylano

Yeah I have a buddy with AllData, I think it goes back to 85? 87? something like that.

But yeah, anyways...

Would the wiring be the same as on an 85? That's as far back as stereo wiring harnesses go for Honda.
I seriously doubt it since 85 is the third gen, and an 81 is a second gen, but its worth an ask.

Old Skool

Honda has had the same standard colors for there civic from '73 to '95
check out www.1stgencivic.com for tons more info

dylano

I saw a lot of the wiring diagrams for the car on that site, but no stereo specific ones.

85swgrwgn

There is no harness for the civics of that era. What I ended up doing on my 85 was just testing each wire to see which one is ground and wich one is 12v switched (there was no 12v constant bc my stock radio did not require any memory). Since there was no 12v constant I ran a wire to the cig lighter bc it has constant 12v and I never use it for anything plus its right next to the radio so it saved me from having to go all the way to the ignition harness. I then ran my own speaker wire to each door. Hope this helps.

NZ-DB8R

Super easy to do.

Only needs 3 wires to turn on, Permanent +12V, ACC +12V and Earth. Other than that speakers.
In my brothers car with no factory headunit I ran a wire from the fuse box for permanent power, from the ignition for ACC and then just earthed it oh to the chassis. Done

absolutetinting

old school way. soldering or butt connectors.
if your not hands on type of guy
go to best buy they'll connect it for $45.00.

rbwdriven

Once you trace down the

12volt constant, switched 12volt and ground.

then pretty much is is speakers.

I've usually just used either a 9volt or a AA. Touch the "lets say white with on one end with with white/ black stripe" listen for the muffled pop. And where it is coming from.

That will tell you which speaker. Your barely moving the cone doing this.

dylano

Hey thanks for the replies everyone! i got it all figured out and i appreciate the replies alot!