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- Joined
- Jul 19, 2012
- Messages
- 52
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- Location
- Anaconda, MT
- Vehicle Year
- 94
- Make / Model
- Mazda
- Engine Size
- 4.0
- Transmission
- Manual
The aftermarket radio in my new (to me) 94 B4000 was a POS from day one. The CD player didn't work and would coat any CD's inserted into it with some kind of oily residue.
That in itself was very annoying, but when the AM/FM radio part stopped working...
Time for an upgrade.
I had been looking around at some economical radios (under $200) prior to the old radio dying, so when it finally did quit, I just went ahead and got my top choice at that time. The one I setteled on was a Boss BV7948B with a 3.6" LCD screen in the single DIN faceplate. I picked it up on Ebay from 3Kings Audio for about $122 shipped. There were no problems with the auction and they shipped it pretty quick, so I have no qualms about throwing their name out there.
Apparently, one of the previous owners were too cheap to buy an adapter harness for it, so that made installation a little bit more difficult than it should have been. The old radio plugs were cut off and the radio wires were attached directly to the factory harness wires with wirenuts. I made do with what I had to work with and just got some butt connectors and heat shrink tubing. The speaker wires were all pretty much the longest wires left. I had to add a couple of 2"-3" extensions to some of the power and ground wires so they didn't get stressed from being too short.
The DVD player function is designed to only work when the parking brake is set. There is a green ground wire that you are supposed to connect to the parking brake wire. This a legal requirement thing that came about to keep the radio companies from getting sued by people who wreck their vehicles while watching DVDs instead of the road. If you think you can keep yourself out of the ditches, you can just ground that green wire and the DVD will work whenever you want it to.
Here's some pics of the installed radio. (Pardon the previously scratched up bezel. Still gotta get some paint to fix that.)
The radio itself sounds pretty good and picks up stations fairly well. Almost too well in fact. I can sometimes hear far away stations in the background if they are on the exact same frequency as a local station. Other than that, it sounds good overall on both the radio and on CD or DVD. If anything, it's pointed out that I could really use some better speakers, now that I have a radio that can take advantage of them. The artists name and song titles are displayed right above the frequency, if that info is broadcast by the station.
The radio has two USB connections on it. One on the front right side of the faceplate, and another on a 18" wire coming out of the back of the radio. I routed the rear USB wire behind the dash down to the ashtray area. Then I pulled out the ashtray from the slide and cut a notch in the back of it with an angle grinder so I could pass the USB plug through it. After I was sure it would fit, I deburred the opening with a file and put a coat of black spray paint over the bare metal to keep it from rusting. Once it was dry I put it back in and wiggled the plug into the tray. Then it was snapped back into the slide tray and slid back into the dash. Now I can put a USB thumb drive into the plug and hide it by just closing the ash tray. A much cleaner solution than having a thumb drive jutting out from the face of the radio.
There's also a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack on the front right side of the faceplate for plugging in a MP3 player. The reviews I read say it's not fully iPod compatible, but I don't use one so that doesn't really matter much to me. There is a SD/MMC card reader behind the faceplate on the left side of the CD/DVD slot as well. While I may possibly use this feature in the future, most likely any music files I store will be kept on a USB thumb drive that is left attached to the plug in the ashtray. Mostly because I've got bunches of those thumb drives lying around already. And one last note on the thumb drives. You can only use one at a time, front or rear, not both. Apparently the manufacturer only alloted enough bandwidth to allow one USB port to be active at a time. I'm not yet sure if this is also true for the SD/MMC and 3.5mm input ports. I'll post back here later if I ever get around to testing that out, but for now it'd be safest to assume that you can only use one of any type of port at a time.
I also picked up a liscense plate mount rear view camera to plug in to the rear camera input on the radio. It was a cheap chinese one and unfortunately the camera arrived DOA. I've already sent it back to Amazon for a refund and I'll try adding another one later. For now I've just added a RCA wire to the rear camera input and just left it coiled up under the dash. That way it's easily accessible and I won't have to pull the radio headunit to add it later.
That in itself was very annoying, but when the AM/FM radio part stopped working... Time for an upgrade.I had been looking around at some economical radios (under $200) prior to the old radio dying, so when it finally did quit, I just went ahead and got my top choice at that time. The one I setteled on was a Boss BV7948B with a 3.6" LCD screen in the single DIN faceplate. I picked it up on Ebay from 3Kings Audio for about $122 shipped. There were no problems with the auction and they shipped it pretty quick, so I have no qualms about throwing their name out there.
Apparently, one of the previous owners were too cheap to buy an adapter harness for it, so that made installation a little bit more difficult than it should have been. The old radio plugs were cut off and the radio wires were attached directly to the factory harness wires with wirenuts. I made do with what I had to work with and just got some butt connectors and heat shrink tubing. The speaker wires were all pretty much the longest wires left. I had to add a couple of 2"-3" extensions to some of the power and ground wires so they didn't get stressed from being too short.
The DVD player function is designed to only work when the parking brake is set. There is a green ground wire that you are supposed to connect to the parking brake wire. This a legal requirement thing that came about to keep the radio companies from getting sued by people who wreck their vehicles while watching DVDs instead of the road. If you think you can keep yourself out of the ditches, you can just ground that green wire and the DVD will work whenever you want it to.
Here's some pics of the installed radio. (Pardon the previously scratched up bezel. Still gotta get some paint to fix that.)
The radio itself sounds pretty good and picks up stations fairly well. Almost too well in fact. I can sometimes hear far away stations in the background if they are on the exact same frequency as a local station. Other than that, it sounds good overall on both the radio and on CD or DVD. If anything, it's pointed out that I could really use some better speakers, now that I have a radio that can take advantage of them. The artists name and song titles are displayed right above the frequency, if that info is broadcast by the station.
The radio has two USB connections on it. One on the front right side of the faceplate, and another on a 18" wire coming out of the back of the radio. I routed the rear USB wire behind the dash down to the ashtray area. Then I pulled out the ashtray from the slide and cut a notch in the back of it with an angle grinder so I could pass the USB plug through it. After I was sure it would fit, I deburred the opening with a file and put a coat of black spray paint over the bare metal to keep it from rusting. Once it was dry I put it back in and wiggled the plug into the tray. Then it was snapped back into the slide tray and slid back into the dash. Now I can put a USB thumb drive into the plug and hide it by just closing the ash tray. A much cleaner solution than having a thumb drive jutting out from the face of the radio.
There's also a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack on the front right side of the faceplate for plugging in a MP3 player. The reviews I read say it's not fully iPod compatible, but I don't use one so that doesn't really matter much to me. There is a SD/MMC card reader behind the faceplate on the left side of the CD/DVD slot as well. While I may possibly use this feature in the future, most likely any music files I store will be kept on a USB thumb drive that is left attached to the plug in the ashtray. Mostly because I've got bunches of those thumb drives lying around already. And one last note on the thumb drives. You can only use one at a time, front or rear, not both. Apparently the manufacturer only alloted enough bandwidth to allow one USB port to be active at a time. I'm not yet sure if this is also true for the SD/MMC and 3.5mm input ports. I'll post back here later if I ever get around to testing that out, but for now it'd be safest to assume that you can only use one of any type of port at a time.
I also picked up a liscense plate mount rear view camera to plug in to the rear camera input on the radio. It was a cheap chinese one and unfortunately the camera arrived DOA. I've already sent it back to Amazon for a refund and I'll try adding another one later. For now I've just added a RCA wire to the rear camera input and just left it coiled up under the dash. That way it's easily accessible and I won't have to pull the radio headunit to add it later.
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