Speaker wiring for aftermarket Alpine unit

[Keggault]

Hi all, first post. I have a 87 528e and the factory radio quit working.
I have an Alpine CDA-7839 headset & cd changer I got for free & am trying to wire up the speakers. I have already wired the power to the unit.
The car has a factory amplifier & power antenna.
I've wired many stereos in the past & this car has me stumped.
Any help would be appreciated.

[darkhorse737]

so what has got u stumped???

[da_bull]

Does yours have the "dial" style fader in the dash? Either that may be bad, or if you have one speaker that is shorted out, the Alpine will shut off the power to the speakers (internally). Once you disconnect the bad speaker it should come back on. The Alpine has a common wiring color scheme.

Whites - Left Front
Grays - Right Front
Greens - Left Rear
Purples - Right Rear

All the black stripes are the negative. I would bypass the factory amp. If you want to use it, you need to hook up the blue with the white stripe up to the white wire (if I remember right) on the car side. This should turn on the factory amp. That being said, the Alpine radio puts out more and better power than the 20+ year old factory amplifier.

[Keggault]

Thanks for the info so far.
The power antenna has been replaced with an aftermarket one & has a different wire. But I also show no power output from the blue/white wire on the radio. Will investigate that more.
I've bypassed the fader dial in the dash & don't show continuity from any of those wires to the LF speaker. I've only pulled the LF out so far. I'm assuming then that the wiring from the fader then goes back to the factory amp & then to the speakers. The speakers worked before. I ran a temporary wire to the LF speaker & got sound but not good sound.
My next step is to run new wiring to all the speakers by-passing the factory wiring completely.

[Keggault]

A scematic of the radio/amp/speaker system would be very helpfull. The Clymer manual I have doesn't have one in it.
KEGGAULT

[da_bull]

I havent seen one for that old of a car. The problem is that they really didnt start keeping accurate findings in the aftermarket world until after the E30's were gone. And finding a BMW wiring schematic that REALLY tells whats going on.

[Lennerd]

Hey folks:
What I want to know is how to arrange wiring 10 speakers to the 4 speaker output of the Kenwood head unit. Is it ok to double up? How about crossover?
I have a '95 530i with an amp in the trunk and WAS going to leave it to drive the speakers till I read your thread here.

Thanks
newbie Len