Craig radio to new stereo harness

[Riley88]

Hey all, had a quick question been hoping someone could help with. Bought a new stereo head, a alpine model. My craig and dash are pulled out. Ive looked at the diagrams and iw ant to do this right, with the proper fuses. There is no straight way it seems to install the new alpine unit, because the craig radio was connected via a 9 pin jack. Does there exists a modern 9 pin, or an adapter where i can do a simple plug and play with this new head unit? OR will i be going the solider route? Any input would be much appreciated, and yes ive read what parts of the forums where people have asked this before just want to see if anyone had experience maybe finding a solution that wouldn't require solider. thank you

[Jonathan]

Is there a simple plug and play solution that won't involve solder? I can't say for certain, and there might be one, but I didn't find it when I did my stereo work.

That being said, it wasn't terribly difficult to make the swap with some solder and new wiring. I don't believe you will find a pre-made connector that lets you plug into the back of the Alpine with the other end plugging into the original car harness.

There are a couple reasons for that. One of them being that the original Craig speakers (and head unit) had shared ground wires. That's not that difficult to overcome and especially if you're replacing the speakers and/or the wiring going to each one. Are you?

A new Alpine deck may also ask for more power wires than what was in the car in 1981, or have them used in a different way (switched power to run the unit versus always on power for radio station memory).

You asked about fuses as well. Your Alpine deck may have a microfuse right in the back of it already. You can have more than one of course, but not ideal to have none. The glass inline ones behind the front console can come out and you can rely on the regular ones in the fuse block already in the car.

The simplest way I found was this:

Run four new pairs of speaker wire. One pair to each speaker.
You can reuse the power wires already in the car or replace them, but take note of which ones they are. One is switched with the ignition and one is always on.
The third wire you need is the ground wire. You will find one ground wire will come up from the fuse relay area and terminate at the lower right hand corner of the radio bracket. Keep that. Then the new ground you run will go the short distance from that bracket bolt to the stereo connector.

What I did was run everything out to the speakers and finish those connections, while the opposite ends that go into the Alpine connector were left hanging in the passenger footwell. The passenger footwell was my little work area to solder the wire ends together.

You solder the eight speaker wire ends to the corresponding Alpine connector wire ends. You do the same with the two power wires and the ground wire as well. The antenna wire can be done on its own as you just plug it in. Same for an iPod cable if you put one in.

Once everything is soldered to the wires end of the Alpine connector, then you can reach around behind the deck and plug the connector in. I gave myself some slack in each wire to let me do this without pulling on anything.

That solution involves soldering unfortunately and I know you asked if there was a solution to avoid it. I would like to tell you there is, but I don't think such a plug and play connector exists for our purposes. They are just trying to do two things different enough that it isn't compatible. Close but not quite. Kind of like trying to find an adapter that would let you use your NES controller on your PS4. It's just not something you will find for sale at Best Buy.

[Ras12]

PM sent

[David T]

PM sent

There is no good "plug and play" way to connect a different radio to the old wiring. The best advice is to run new speaker wires and replace the original speakers. Cut the old plug and splice in a new one. You don't have to use a soldering iron, there are cold crimping methods of connecting wires and plugs although I personally do prefer soldering.

[Trstno1]

What I did when I changed the stereo was get on Amazon and purchase a male and female harness for a newer car. That way you can wire the car to one end, then wire the deck to the other, and viola you have an aftermarket stereo with a plug for the car. However, no way you look at it you will have some soldering to do.

[Riley88]

Me and a fellow forum user dusty will be doing the rewiring this weekend. I think we will just rewire the whole car, better to safe i want to get in and do a better deep clean too also to check all electrical connections. Thank you all!