RE: upgradiing 200 TQW stereo

["Lawson, Dave" <dlawson@ball.com>]

I am listening to tunes again in my 1990 200 TQ wagon. Here's 
the story. I decided to use an old Denon DCR-5420A cassette 
head unit because it has speaker level outputs which eliminated
the need to install amps in the back and run the additional wiries.
I reviewed the stock non-bose radio wiring diagram which uses
6 speakers, 2 in the front dash and hi/lo in each rear door. The 
rear speakers have an additional amplifier and I think this also 
amplifies the rear antenna signal from the roof mounted fuba.
The input to the stock rear amplifier uses a common negative 
ground hookup which is a bit different.

I bought a set of Audi 200 connectors from Crutchfield along 
with a small speaker interface box (PWR1) which converts 
normal speaker signals to the common negative signal. This 
was used for the rear only. I also bought the VW antenna 
converter interface cable.

I spliced, soldered, heat shrinked the acc pwr,gnd,front speakers,
power antenna, dimmer to the crutchfield connector. I ran the main
radio power to the bk/bl switched power to the CC head. This
circuit is fused and now the radio switches on with the ign key.
I thought of using the switched power to the bk/bl on the 
heated seat switches, but this circuit is not fused. For the rears
I taped off the rear speaker out neg lines from the deck and 
connected the pos wires to the PWR1 box. The pos outputs 
of the PWR1 box are connected to the pos wires to the 
crutchfield connector. The neg wire to the stock rear amp is 
hooked to the back of the radio and chassis ground. I connected
the crutchfield harness connectors to the audi harness, 
connected up the antenna cable using the adapter,
and turned on the key... out came the tunes. Pretty easy,
I spent about 6 hrs installing it, most of it reviewing wiring and
using the dremel tool to grind out the tabs in the center console 
so the radio bucket would slide in.

I am only using the rear antenna cable, couldn't find the stock
front one center console. Using the stock rear amp seems to work 
fine, but when I fade to the front some sound still comes from the
rear speakers. I would guess that the stock system doesn't have
speaker level outputs as inputs to the rear amp, but it seems to be
working and the sound is pretty good for using the stock speakers.
-

Dave Lawson
1990 200 TQ Avant, with tunes, bilsteins go on next
1983 ur-quattro, no tunes, sony xkr-100 on the work order