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Are about to replace old otiginal clarion radio CD palyer in my 1997 Liberty. Any special hints to make it easy.

Yep.. Buy yourself a crossover wiring adapter, subaru to whatever brand CD player you're thinking of getting and also try and find a single DIN pocket from a wreckers if you're buying a single DIN player ( if buying double DIN CD/DVD player please disregard )

Also grab yourself a WSM so you can see how to remove the plastic trim from around the stereo without breaking any of them

try and grab your self some sterio keys. they help yo get it out sooo much. and like whise with what RSR555 said.

Cheers Mike

if you don't get a cross over wiring thingy like RSR said (recommended!) then you'll at least want a multimeter to figure out which is power and which is memory. Dunno if this is the best way, but basically I've always just...

connect power and memory
set the stereo to just front left
strip your speaker wires and touch your front left stero outs to each pair of speaker wires (if you look into where they come out of the loom they'll probably be twisted together in pairs.
Find the right pair, connect em up
repeat for all speakers!

Not sure on the connector plug on the harness, but if you set your stereo to isolate each speaker in turn you may be able to probe the back till you find the right wire?

Quickest and least painful is as RSR suggested, just get the connector

buy a connector - easier. as for removing the original - remove everything down the midde of the armrest. there are two screws at the top, the rest pops out. in the ash tray there are two more screws. remove those. the radio trim pops off and from there you have 4 more screws. pull that out and pull the radio out line your new one up with the pocket face and go. (I'm assuming you still have the tape player.) wire your connector up and put it all back together.

To go with what subyroo is saying theres a few tricks to it:
- The constant power is generally the thickets wire, i normally get the multimeter out set it to DC and connect one lead to an earth then check wires for voltage. Constant power will have 12VDC even when ignition is off
- Once you have constant, try and find the accessory wire by turning ignition to accessory and finding which wire has power when it is in this position. Accessory should be at 0V when ignition is off and +12VDC when its on/
- Once you know which wires are your power wires, hook the multimeter up to the constant wire then probe for the earth wire, when you get the earth wire your multimeter should read +12VDC
- Hook up your wires, and now you have power and stereo memory
On most head unit, Constant power, accessory power and earth are right next to each other on the head units wiring plug

For the speakers, you can just hook them up to figure out which one is which, then if you are unsure of the wires for the head unit, fade the sound to one side and to one speaker one at a time to be sure you have the right one. If its a weird head unit or its hard to fade, you can use a 6V battery to place a charge on the speaker wire and you will hear them make a quick crackle, preferrably dont use this method though as it can cause a bit of damage to the speaker.

Hope this helps.

Ended up getting wiring adaptors from Repco. Only issue is the trim needs to be cut to accomodate the slightly wider front of the Pioneer deck.
What is the best way to cut the trim?

Maybe get a really really really sharp knife and shave off where needed....

Maybe get a candle and knife and heat the knife up then push-melt where needed...

um anyone else?

no need to trim the panel. take the top trim ring off and bolt the unit in place. only units I trim panels for are the ebay items.

Chris_Rogers wrote:no need to trim the panel. take the top trim ring off and bolt the unit in place. only units I trim panels for are the ebay items.

yes, but we had to trim an earlyish wrx facia to accomodate a JVC unit.

alex

fair enough. never had to trim one myself.