Add AUX / auxiliary input to factory digital tape deck XJ MJ

[XJguy]

Are the circled pins the ones you're describing? They are marked as TP371 and TP471, to which did you attach the right and left, does orientation matter?

I've found Jeep cassette players with two types of fronts, one with the clock button (newer model) and ones with the DX button. However, I've found that some with the DX button have the board vertical and some have it horizontal and all that I have are different than automan2164's pictures (at least 4 versions?). The picture with the three radios has the DX ones lined up front to back. You can see similarities between the DX ones but the boards are in different orientations, and both the front DX one and the CLK one have horizontal boards. I've circled the TP371 & TP471 pins in all radios. The blue tape has the model numbers from the other side of the radios.

 

 

You're the man! Yes those are the pins! The positives get hooked to those two pins the negatives go to ground and you're set! One is a left channel one the the right.

 

I actually pulled out the cassette mechanism to get better access and to route the wires through the radio to exit in the rear. Once hooked up I put it all back together and everything works great.

 

PS: went to Radio shack they sell female pin connectors that will slide right over those pins for a clean good installation, no need to risk damaging things with solder.

[fiatslug87]

Just got it hooked up and did a dry run (radio not put back together) and it works great just like XJguy said. I used the line from earphones and the female connectors from an old wiring harness I had laying around. Now I need to get this one finished and repeat for the other two MJs.

Thanks XJguy nice upgrade! :cheers:

[XJguy]

Glad to see this working for someone else. Enjoy!

[Automan2164]

You guys suck.

 

Rob L. :(

[87Chief]

What is the part number/package look like from radio shack??

[87Chief]

This is what I have...

 

 

 

Volume knob...

 

 

Can I do it?

[XJguy]

I'm sure you can, but I wouldn't know where to begin. On Youtube there are a few videos of guys who tapped into the volume and or amp to add an auxiliary input. But if you just get a Jeep stock radio it will be much easier.....as easy as can be actually and look better.

[XJguy]

What is the part number/package look like from radio shack??

 

Just look for female pin connectors. Costs less than $3

[87Chief]

sorry to bring this old thread up but got a radio and was wondering if the female pins will have a male connector already on it for the ipod/iphone.

[87Chief]

can you please give us a good picture of the connectors?

 

Thanks

[Dando]

I would like to try to do this to my truck this evening, has anyone done this mod recently as I am just alittle bit confused and have a few questions about how to hook it up. I am confused about the description of hooking a left and right positive and grounds, the speaker wires I'm used to have two wires not four.

[gogmorgo]

Thanks for bringing this thread back from the dead... would never have though this possible and I'll be looking into it.

 

To hopefully answer your question, each speaker will have two wires going to it, a signal feed and a ground of sorts. One left speaker (two wires) + one right speaker (two more wires) = four wires.

If you dissect a pair of stereo headphones, you'll find two wires going to each earpiece as you expect. At the plug end, you'll find all four wires, although the two ground wires are often merged before the plug.

When connecting the wires to the terminals on the radio, you'd take the feed wires for each earpiece and connect one to each pin, then ground the other two. Pretty well the same thing as wiring two speakers in stereo. The pin terminals on the radio would be the "speakers".

[Dando]

As an update I actually found an inline fm modulator made by audiovox, I installed in behind the dash and wired it into my stock radio antenna. Works great so far and at $45 it was worth the money in my opinion.

[gogmorgo]

Just got around to doing this. Couldn't find the female ends for those pins locally, so I just wrapped the wires as tightly as I could and taped them down. My tape deck didn't work so I pulled it to make things easier, and left it out so I can stash my chord there when not in use. It works okay, but the bleeding in of underlying stations (even just static) is super annoying, especially between songs. I think for the small investment I'm going to pick up an FM modulator.

If I could find an aftermarket deck with aux-in that matches the aesthetic, I'd go for that, but all the ones I'm finding would look way out of place. Seriously, I can appreciate having a nice stereo in a car, but why the hell does it need cheesy flashing lights, or a massive screen?

[gogmorgo]

Little update... This actually works while the radio is powered off (key on but push power button on radio) so that gets rid of bleeding. Cool. But I'll still have to pull it apart again...

 

Because I still haven't quite readjusted to having over twice the horsepower of the Lada.

 

Took off around a corner from a stop sign at likely around 3/4 throttle as I always did in the Lada. In the Lada, with a combination of <80hp and AWD, this results in comparatively rapid but not overly aggressive acceleration. In the MJ, this results in oppositelock. And with an open manifold (picking up parts to address that tomorrow) I can't hear the wheels spinning and don't realize what's happening until the back end is coming around. Oops.

But to the point of the story, my phone flew out of the tray under the glove box, and despite having five feet of aux cord and less than five feet from the cassette slot to anywhere in the MJ, and that I'd dropped the tape deck bracket back in, wrapped the cord around it and taped it down to that as well, it still managed to pull the wire wraps off the pins. So that's annoying.

[NC Tom]

Need to reopen this ancient thread. I recently pick up a P56007214 from a 92 Cherokee. Believe it or not, $12 off CL. PO says tape not working, but I don't care about that at all.

 

I do want to add an AUX jack like what's listed here. I have identified the pins and I have a stereo wire that I have sacrificed for this purpose. However, I only kind-of understand the wiring. In the attached pic, I have two wires in each bundled wire. The red with bare copper is "-" and the white with bare copper is "+". They connect to a make stereo plug.

 

Based on the thread, am I connecting the "+" wire to both of the radio pins, and the "-" wire to the ground? What do I do with the two copper wires?

 

I'm hopeful someone is still interested in this.

 

[Minuit]

1 hour ago, NC Tom said:

 

 

I'm hopeful someone is still interested in this.

 

 

If you consider a year and a half of experience, almost a year of active business operations with a number of happy customers on this forum, and more than 30 radios of various models successfully retrofitted with AUX as interested, I guess I can take a shot at this.

 

The colored wires are your audio signals. The bare wires are ground. Most stereo 3.5mm jacks work this way. So you'll have to somehow connect the red/white wires to the radio pins and the bare wires to a metal surface. But that's if your particular cable is wired the way most of them are. Do you know which is left and which is right? How do you plan on connecting the wires to the pins?

 

Also, I can almost guarantee you'll have interference with that RX-173. Not gonna be fun to listen to at all. If it truly is the original from a 1992 Cherokee, it's a 56009001. In that case, you'll be better off. There's a reason I suggest against the 56007214 for a DIY aux in - the bleedthrough and interference problems are truly awful unless otherwise addressed.

[NC Tom]

15 hours ago, Minuit said:

I can almost guarantee you'll have interference with that RX-173. Not gonna be fun to listen to at all. If it truly is the original from a 1992 Cherokee, it's a 56009001. In that case, you'll be better off. There's a reason I suggest against the 56007214 for a DIY aux in - the bleedthrough and interference problems are truly awful unless otherwise addressed.

 

Dang! I do have the 7214. And I was all excited about hacking this thing with a aux jack!  To answer your question about left and right channels, no, I don't know. However, I'm not overly concerned about backwards balance if that's the end result.

 

What I WAS going to do: Using female pin connectors, attach the red wire to a pin and the white wire to the other pin. Attach copper wires to the metal body.

 

So, Minuit, what are my options? I don't care about losing AM. I also don't care about losing the tape, if that's an option.

[Minuit]

3 hours ago, NC Tom said:

 

Dang! I do have the 7214. And I was all excited about hacking this thing with a aux jack!  To answer your question about left and right channels, no, I don't know. However, I'm not overly concerned about backwards balance if that's the end result.

 

What I WAS going to do: Using female pin connectors, attach the red wire to a pin and the white wire to the other pin. Attach copper wires to the metal body.

 

So, Minuit, what are my options? I don't care about losing AM. I also don't care about losing the tape, if that's an option.

 

Well, I was happy to post the instructions for fixing the RX-173 publicly right up until I started noticing copies of my radios for sale on Ebay. So unfortunately the door has closed on that. There are some secrets that I must keep to protect my business unfortunately. These days I leave the basic aux techniques up with the caveat that you really should use an older radio for this - they're better, but not perfect.

 

As for your options, here's what I see:

 

- Keep doing what you're doing, and see how it works for you. I have a large enough sample size to say you probably won't like it without further work, but it might be worth it to you to try it for yourself and see what it's like in your truck to your ears. I would suggest listening to a song that has a part that's panned hard left or hard right to figure out which side is which before buttoning it up.

 

- If you want to DIY it "properly" with the same parts I use on my production radios, I make a kit for the tape decks with all the parts you'll need including a fully assembled aux cable with the proper connections and a step by step instruction manual. These are sold to trusted individuals only (established CC members count as trusted individuals, so you're good here). Some soldering/desoldering and quite a bit of disassembly is required for an RX-173.

 

- Send it to me and I'll do it for you. Could also clean the volume knob contacts, change any burned out bulbs and give the whole thing a once over.

[NC Tom]

16 hours ago, Minuit said:

 

Well, I was happy to post the instructions for fixing the RX-173 publicly right up until I started noticing copies of my radios for sale on Ebay. So unfortunately the door has closed on that. There are some secrets that I must keep to protect my business unfortunately. These days I leave the basic aux techniques up with the caveat that you really should use an older radio for this - they're better, but not perfect.

 

No worries. I would like to try this on my own though. Have you tried to add aux by disabling the tape or removing the tape altogether?

[NC Tom]

More questions from a noob. Before I enlist the services of radio-guru, Minuit, I'd like to bench test this radio out of the MJ. Can I use a battery charger? If so, what rear connector pins do I hook jumpers to so I don't fry this thang?