This has probably been covered a dozen times already, but here it is again.
Don't own any cassettes and the poor radio reception on my Blaupunkt Monterrey started to get on my nerves.
I picked up a Nakamichi MB-VI on e-bay. It's a single din 6 cd changer. The illumination colour is also adjustable to match your dash lights. I also picked up a harness adapter for the 944 from crutchfield:

Removed the blau. The only connections i was concerned about was the power plug that plugged into the back of the Blau:

pin 1: (large) ground (brown x2)
pin 2: (large) ignition lock (green x2)
pin 3: lighting (red with black stripe)
pin 4: bridged, antenna (red with black stripe x2)
pin 5: blank
pin 6: permanent positive (red with white stripe)

and the speaker connectors coming from the fader on the dash:

white: front left
yellow: rear left
black: front right
red: rear right

I soldered the crutchfield harness to the pigtail on the nakamichi (and used heatshrink tubes to protect the connection).

pin 1: (large) ground (black)
pin 2: (large) 12 volts switched (red)
pin 3: dimmer (orange)
pin 4: power antenna (blue)
pin 5: blank
pin 6: constant power (yellow)

and the speaker connectors:

white: front left
green: rear left
gray: front right
violet: rear right

Installed the nakamichi. It was pretty much plug and play and i didn't need to hack up the factory harness.
Here's the finished product. It looks stock and matches the dash perfectly..

 

Looks very clean!

It is so nice to see a proper radio install.

What is your speaker set up?

Oh and this is a very nice write up and should help a lot of people.

 

Thanks
Running stock speakers atm. That's my next upgrade. Even with the stock speakers and the nak, it is a huge improvement in sound quality from what i had.

 

On your car it will be 4x6 fronts and 4x6 rear.

With some work a 6.5 will easily fit in the rear.

Later cars have a removable plate for 6.5's to fit in the rear but not so on 86's IIRC.

 

Great work. I applaud your use of solder instead of crimp connectors!

Check out the sweet wiring I got with my new car. There were actually twice as many butt connectors as this, but I zoomed in so that you could see the exposed wires.

 

pontifex4, I feel your pain. WHen I got my car, the stereo wiring was a mess - it had a loose lead connected directly to the battery (which was supposed to be the constant +12V) and 4" round speakers literally wedged between the doors and the door cards. Not to mention the retro-tastic casette deck or the fact that the factory wiring seems to have been completely removed. I've since replaced the stereo with an eclipse head unit and the speakers with properly sized 4x6" coaxials, but I still haven't yet completely replaced the stereo wiring

I'm starting to think that it might be worthwhile to try getting some better components...now I'm starting to wonder what I could get a Nakamichi like that for, perhaps re-wiring the stereo and putting in a small amp and sub would be a good project. hmmmm.....

 

Nice job, I'm planning to redo my harness at some point in the near future too. Mine isn't nearly as bad as that pic with the exposed wires but it definitely could use some solder and heat shrink.

 

Great job! I used the same 944 harness from crutchfield. I feel everyone else's pain with the hacked up stereo harnesses, most of my previous 944's were that way.

 

Nice work. Regarding the speakers, if anyone knows of modern 4x6's that will fit in the doors with the stock grills, please post it here. It's a challenging fit because they can't be too deep and the front can't stick out at all.

Crutchfield told me it couldn't be done, but there's got to be something that will work! All the paper is disintegrated on my OEM blaupunkt's.

 

Dude, I would have been happy to sell you some! That's what fellow RLers are for, to help you with those little, hard to find parts

Nice writeup and pics. Looks great in there, very clean

 

Crutchfield doesn't carry any 4x6 speakers that will fit in the front location.

I have posted a list of speakers that should fit in the front location behind the original grills in several other threads. There is only ONE that I know will be a drop-in and that's a made-in-USA Jensen paper coned speaker with a whizzer. The others should fit, but will probably require trimming the rubber/plastic edge on the speaker and/or removing the tweeter trim.

 

Very nice, I'm doing the same on my early car right now, apparently front and back speakers are on the same channel...

 

I put some Pioneer TS-A4674R in my doors and it sounds awesome! SNUG fit behind the speaker-cover, but it fit a-ok. the only problem is that the former-owner did not do the wiring ANY favors when he put his alpine cassette deck in, or the two piggybacking amps. >facepalm<

I'm gonna be figuring out the hard way how to wire up this bad boy for some decent sound. not looking for stupid thump, but can't be without good tunes either.

But I digress; Those Pioneer speakers are a perfect fit. I am also a bit of a fanboy for Pioneer speakers, and have been for years. They sound the best and are very malleable as far as eq goes. Getting good tone is a no-brainer and you don't have to fight the speaker to make it sing.

 

Good project and a good thread. Thanks for posting it.

As a Nak guy I had looked for some earlier that would go with my car. I had an older one but I gave it to the guy who bought my Z car.

That looks very good as well. I have my Blau Monterrey but it is a box and a Sony unit with cassette handles chores now. But it os not as flush as the Nak is. And I know the Nak plays better.

I have a pretty good selection of cassettes as I started the cassettes early. That is, before the end of the 8 tracks. A lot of you might not know what those are . And I got to the Cds late in the game.

I love how a Nak deck can play a quality cassette.

You did not put in any extra amps right? Just using the Nak to drive the system.

Ok you cost me money here, But thanks.

 

I'll be needing to re-do my headunit, not that it was a **** install, i just messed up all the cables with the gauges and havnt had time to tidy it up.

good to see some make the effort in making a clean install.