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1978 280Z radio help


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I have a 1978 Datsun 280Z radio but no wiring diagram. Can anyone decode the wiring colors for me please?

I mainly need to know left or right speaker wires. I have white and white/black wireed together and then black and black/red wired together. Pretty sure they are the speakers but 

are they left and right or front and back? The radio is a Hitachi KMS-2411Z and has the stereo button. So I am guessing provision for left and right? 

Any help is appreciated. It's not installed so just getting it figured out. Thanks

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Better diagrams here http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/electrical.htm

 

1977 diagram (single large page - full color) http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/wiringdiagrams/F77ZCAR-WIRING1.pdf

 

On the 77 diagram, I only see one speaker (upper right area), so I'm curious if the factory system is mono.

 

I'll try and take a look at my stereo Saturday, but it's a 77, has a period aftermarket stereo, and is completely apart, so I don't know how much help I'll be.

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4 hours ago, ZHoob2004 said:

Better diagrams here http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/electrical.htm

 

1977 diagram (single large page - full color) http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/wiringdiagrams/F77ZCAR-WIRING1.pdf

 

On the 77 diagram, I only see one speaker (upper right area), so I'm curious if the factory system is mono.

 

I'll try and take a look at my stereo Saturday, but it's a 77, has a period aftermarket stereo, and is completely apart, so I don't know how much help I'll be.

The radio has the stereo button and the extra speaker wires VS the prior Hitachi which is mono with the single white and white/black speaker wire. I believe the 77-78 had the stereo button with two sets of speaker wires and the early stereo just the one. I wonder if the stereo was an upgrade or ??? since it isn't shown in the diagrams. I had a 75 radio which only had the white and white/black wires. Very interesting......

 

 

Edited by Ken Smith
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  • 1 month later...

I just got through replacing the head unit and speakers on my '77 last week and the wiring was tricky. The stock wiring has a single ground coming out of the head unit, which is wired to BOTH speakers' negative terminals and then a common ground somewhere. Modern head units do not do this, instead carrying a separate ground for each speaker output plus another for the unit itself. So I had to run new wires for each speaker, but it was really easy honestly. Although my car did have an aftermarket head unit (with 8-track player!) from back in the day so perhaps some differences.

 

New two-way 4" speakers that mounted right into the factory holes were only $40 for the pair, and new head units can be had for $100 or less depending on what you want. I spent $60 more than that for this RetroSound  because I wanted it to look a bit more period-correct. The whole process took me a couple hours (though I already had the dash and center console out for other reasons) and the sound quality upgrade is night and day. Absolutely worth upgrading IMO.

 

Here's a test fit of the new head unit in the console (faceplate is rough cut here, I sanded it down later):

 

3qBAnWD.jpg

Edited by bawfuls
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  • 2 years later...

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