Radio Hook Up

[roadking77]

Trying to get my radio hooked up. There are a couple of wires I am not sure what they are. Any help would be appreciated.
20250304_151652 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
This is marked 12V. It has 2 wires with a constant 12V feed without the key turned on. One wire is hot the other is a ground. My question does anyone have an idea what the black box is? Could it be a relay?
20250304_151713 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
Any idea what this red/pinkish wire is? (the black and orange wires in the pics go to the black box in the previous pic.

20250304_151636 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
No idea if these are stereo related or not? A light grey (maybe) 2 wires but may be one cut in half?

20250304_151600 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
Any idea on what this may be?

[TA301]

Do you have the original audio unit or is it aftermarket? If it is the original unit, is it just a radio, 8-track or radio cassette?

[roadking77]

Sorry, its the original digital tuned radio with built in 8 track. Tenth Anniversary Trans Am. At some point someone put an aftermarket stereo in, hence why the wiring is butchered a bit.

[FormTA]

That black box may be a noise suppressor.  That pink wire is ringing a bell but I don't know.

[TA301]

I had an aftermarket SONY radio-cassette installed by the previous owner. When I replaced the dash last year, I had to go through a maze of aftermarket wiring for the stereo and the alarm. It was not fun.

You are going to look for three connectors. One front speaker connector, one rear speaker connector and one power connector It usually will have grey, black and yellow wires. Don't recall the color of the fourth. The speaker connectors are blue and white.

Your unit must have three slots in the back plus a fourth connector that is independently in the same rear panel. That one powers up the digital clock of the audio unit, possibly using the pink wire connector you pictured, or an orange wired one. Good luck.

[wheels78ta]

Maybe this can help with the wiring.......

https://firebirdtransamparts.com/techinfo/harness/optionwire/optionwire.htm#ra

[roadking77]

20250228_105918 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
This is what I had with the radio. I should have said in the beginning that this is a correct radio but did not come with this car. The top plug is missing which is the power. I do have the connections on the radio itself figured out. The bottom plug is the rear speakers, the middle plug is the front speaker and the top plug (missing) is the power. There is an additional 2 plug connector that is for the digital display. Somewhere along the way the original radio was removed and the original connectors were cut.

Wheels-thanks for the link
TA301-Thanks,
Luke-Thanks, I did not think of a noise suppressor but you may be on to something.

I am thinking the pink wire with the grey connector may go to the power antennae?

[N PRGRES]

I believe Pink goes to the antenna, there should be a power antenna relay somewhere near the glove box if I recall correctly.

[Wallington]

The circled connector is the type used for seatbelt warning buzzer and digital clock, the location, not so much.

[roadking77]

Thanks Wally. It very well may be the seat belt buzzer. I will look further into that. I was pleasantly surprised that the door buzzer alarm was in place and works! Although its kind of annoying while working on the car with the door open. So I have it unhooked at this point.

[Wallington]

Remove the keys from ignition.......aaah, quiet

[roadking77]

Hmm! My door buzzer works once the door is open whether or not the key is in the ignition.

[5th T/A]

The constant key buzzer may be caused by contacts stuck together in the turn signal switch. The service manual talks more about resolving key switch buzzers that do not work. But if yours works any time the driver's door is open, I would probably start with the contacts in the turn signal switch.

IMG_5504 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

IMG_5505 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

[roadking77]

Thanks for the info. Something else to dig into

[Wallington]

And here I was only being funny, guess we found another issue to fix!

Just had a look, that circled plug is for the harness that goes to seatbelt stalk. In the second pic of yours it looks like it has two wires, just the one behind it!

This is the harness that plugs into it, single-wire end to dash, double-wire end to seatbelt, it actually removes the ground when clipped in and buzzer stops.

Seatbelt buzzer harness 2 by Ben, on Flickr

[roadking77]

Perfect, Thank You.

[roadking77]

So, I was having problems with getting things hooked up. On the bench everything worked great. I had it hooked up in the car working like it should. I am getting ready to install it in the dash permanently and wanted to hook up all of the wires one last time. I got NUTHIN! So, frustrated back to the drawing board. I found: the always hot wire had a blown fuse. The acc/switched on hot that I THOUGHT was hooked up, had zero power. SO, A new wire directly to the fuse box and it works fine now. Now for the fun part. Hooking up the power antennae. I have no idea how this thing works The one in the car was not correct and therefore the connector is wrong. It is a 2 wire connector. My ant. has 3 wires. The radio has 1 wire marked for ant. So I have no idea how to hook this thing up. Any help would be appreciated.

[Wallington]

Original aerial has power up, power down and ground. Aftermarket often hooks up to stereo so powered fully when radio is turned on and has no switch at all, sometimes. Do you have a switch at all in the dash?

Screenshot (143) by Ben, on Flickr

[5th T/A]

Kerry,
I did some research and found a power antenna diagram I believe for a third generation F-Body. I tried to find one for a second generation but could not. I found similar diagrams for several other GM cars, so more than likely your car will be the same or very close. What you really need is a 1979 Pontiac shop manual. Typically, the GM factory wiring diagram does not include the radio and power antenna. Usually in the back of the manual will be a section with subassembly wiring diagrams. There should be a diagram just for the radio, speakers and antenna. A 1980 manual may include a power amplifier.


If you look at the box in the lower right-hand corner of this drawing you will see the power antenna assembly and it is showing wires in white, dark green and gray, same as your antenna. The antenna has built in limit switches that will stop the motor from running once the antenna is fully extended or retracted. The box in the lower left corner of the drawing is a relay assembly. This is basically the brains of the power antenna. It will provide power to extend the antenna if the ignition switch is in the run or accessory position and the radio is turned on. Once the radio is turned off or the ignition switch is turned off it will send power to the antenna to retract it. This relay assembly shows a black ground wire, a green wire to the fuse box, always hot and a pink to the radio. Turning the radio on should energize the pink wire telling the relay assembly to extend the antenna.

I don't know if you have this relay and wiring harness in your car, hopefully you have one somewhere. It may be multiple wiring harnesses; I am not sure. While it may be possible to duplicate the wiring, trying to duplicate the relay would be tough.

I hope this helps. Ideally it would be great if someone who has a TATA took pictures or maybe has one with the dash open for reference.
IMG_4471 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

[Wallington]

Do you need the 79-81 era diagrams? Was looking at a couple when a posted the basic plug, assumed it was more a problem of combining non-original pieces together.

[N PRGRES]

There "should" be a relay over top of the glove box, at least my old TATA had one

[roadking77]

Thanks for all of the help. There is a relay on the radio side of the inside edge of the glove box,
20250319_132911 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr

When I googled the numbers, it says it is for the rear defroster? This is the only relay inside the glove box area.

Thanks Larry, after I posted I started looking around as well and found something very similar to what you have. I only have a 1980 manual and it shows the power amp hooked up to the radio as well.

The big thing that was confusing me was the bench testing instructions. There are different wires used as a ground for going up and going down. I could not wrap my peanut brain around how to change the ground midstream. I also did not know how the 3 wires converted to the single wire of the radio? With the enclosed diagram and what I found everything seems to make a bit more sense now. I have a new relay which was an extra when I bought some for my windows. I will try to wire that into the antennae, I also ordered a new 3 wire connector. At this point I am thinking I will be better off putting all new wires in rather than trying to find something that may not be there.

[N PRGRES]

Yeah who knows what has been done of removed, put in new ones and be safe. 

[Wallington]

Even the non rear demister cars still got the relays, NOS and unused.

[N PRGRES]

Even the non rear demister cars still got the relays, NOS and unused.

Now I have to see if my 81 has one

[5th T/A]

A little more information regarding wiring and the relay that I found online.

The relay is a part number 1258686 and is shown here. I saw several on ebay.

IMG_4474 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

IMG_4475 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

IMG_4476 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

I think this last picture will be somewhat helpful. The lower photo shows the location of the antenna relay, above the glove box. It also shows the entire power antenna wiring harness (upper photo) with some explanation as to how and where it is routed. It might be worthwhile to try and locate this wiring harness, maybe from someone who scraps FB's.

IMG_4481 by Lawrence Alexander, on Flickr

[roadking77]

HMM, I didnt look that high up into the glove box. Of course I put everything back together last evening Will be taking it apart again tomorrow.

[79GoldnTan]

Wow, Good info. Thank you, as you can imagine the wiring for my radio is totally screwed. I would like to get right, this helps a bunch. Thanks again

[N PRGRES]

Someone kept saying there was a relay above the glove box but I forget who that was lol

[roadking77]

Yea, I wonder who that was
When I made my initial comment my eyes were fresh as I had just had the glove box apart. When it was opened up I did not look that high only remembered nothing in the back but duct work. I am excited now to dig back into it hoping to find it still there.

[N PRGRES]

Watch, it won’t be there and I’ll look like an idiot 

[roadking77]

It was there I was able to trace back to the fuse panel with good results. Thanks for the help.

[roadking77]

20250324_161437 by Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
For closure, Radio is all hooked up and working like it should. It fought me along the way but I did get it. Power antennae hooked up and working properly. A bit more detail in my build thread. Thanks for all of the help.

[Wallington]

Look great.