Club 80-90 Forums

The car stereo was running the battery down, so I took it out. So far so good, but I would like to replace it with something newer, and obviously the modern car stereos don't use the same connection.

Is there an adapter that can be used to plug in a newer radio? I have looked but no joy so far.

The picture is of the plug that is on the van today, no idea if this is standard, or whether it's possible to connect a different one?

Of the several I have bought over the years, they have come with an adapter loom. No doubt somewhere like halfords will sell them as well.

The connector you have is a proprietary one for a particular brand of stereo.

Keep pulling at that, hopefully you'll end up with a standard ISO connector a little bit further down. It might be chopped directly into your loom, though

Thank you, that was it, appreciate the quick response!

That connector is a proprietry connector suited to one brand of head unit.
Most if not all head units now use a "ISO" connector, you'de be better changing the conenctions to ISO then you can plug what the flip you like in there, simply plug and unplug.
VW Didn't use an ignition feed for their head units back in the day and before ISO was a thing so you may, depening on who wired the last radio have to run an ignition feed to it, simple enough, just a black wire from one of the (right sort of) G pins off the back of the central electrics (Fuse box)
Not the best idea to leave them permenently on as some head units never go to sleep properly without an ignition feed and they like to drain batteries for fun.

Give that plug a tug and get the rest of the wiring out to see if the standard plug is still in there

Take the ash tray out, should reveal the wiring 

A BIT LATE NOW, BUT WORTH CONSIDERING...

That is an after-market loom.
I suspect there 'should' be an ISO or SOT lead connected to that.

Red = battery live, but may be ignition live in some vehicles.
Yellow = ignition live, but may be battery live in some vehicles.
Black = ground.
Blue-white may be antenna feed (but don't take that as fact).

The speaker wires appear to be the SOT standard scheme.
If I remember correctly....

Purple and purple-black - rear right
Green and green-black - front right
Grey and grey-black - front left
White and white-black - rear left.

I hope that helps.

So if your stereo does not go on and off with the ignition, try swapping the red and yellow wires.
It was very common to have to swap these in the 90s and early 2000s.