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I had a factory UU7 radio restored by M&R auto electronics for my 1984 TA. Want to install it in the car but don’t know what the gray wire connector is for. There doesn’t appear to be anything under the dash that looks like it will plug into this connector. Anyone know what this is for? Maybe power antenna??
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Once you plug in the connectors under your dash you'll be G-T-G. That wire is present on almost every Buick radio I get and can also be found on the Corvette BOSE head units. I've never found a car that had that wire plugged in.
Little update: I installed the radio in my TA and there doesn't appear to be any back lighting. There wasn't any bulbs on the radio face when I removed the faceplate to investigate. I thought maybe the bulbs were just missing, but there isn't even any wiring in the typical bulb areas.
The radio was in a 1984 TA I bought for parts. No idea if it’s the original radio or not. I’m not seeing anything deeper in the unit for lights. I also tried emailing M&R since they’re the guys who restored the radio but I haven’t received a response back.
It might be original. But the faceplate seems kind of shiny black for a Trans Am. I thought that they were always more gray. And even the script writing of "stereo cassette" seems rather Buick-y. And are those chromed balance and fade controls? Doesn't seem quite right for a Firebird. But 1984 is older than any Firebird that I've owned so maybe that's what they used back then.
John (who also seems to know pretty much everything about this stuff) mentioned Buick above, so I thought maybe that he thought that this was a Buick head unit.
It looks like this unit definitely doesn’t have backlighting because the back of the faceplate doesn’t have any transparent areas for the text or anything to light up. Looking like this isn’t a correct Firebird radio. Guess I’ll just have to settle for period correct.
It looks like this unit definitely doesn’t have backlighting because the back of the faceplate doesn’t have any transparent areas for the text or anything to light up. Looking like this isn’t a correct Firebird radio. Guess I’ll just have to settle for period correct.
No backlighting. That's really odd. I wonder how well lighted that area of the car was.
If you want to go more on-spec for a Firebird, those radios aren't hard to find. They're out there on eBay and other online sellers. Most of them are really cheap too. The only ones that I've seen that get expensive are CD players, which weren't available until 1988 and weren't very common options at first, The other head unit that gets expensive is the one from the 1988 and 1989 GTAs that works with the steering wheel controls. These are rare and the people selling them usually know what they've got. It's the only radio that works with the SWC. People ask a lot for those online, and sometimes not even in very good condition. This is the radio that I have which was refurbished by M&R.
That's a first ! The radio is a little older than most that I play with,... but I've NEVER seen one without any back-lighting before !
