Mondial radio replacement

I am going through the same exercise with my radio. The center console/trim needs to come out, the screws are on the sides. Once you remove it, all the wires are exposed, very easy to work on.

 

Yes, like Richard said... very easy once the cover is removed.
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You didn't mention the model of radio you chose. If you look for an output called 'pre-out' this would be the pre-amplifier output for left and right. It's possible that the radio will have pre-out connectors that are a red and white RCA style jack. In either case, if you have pre-out signals on your new radio, you can buy a DIN female connector on ebay or maybe Radio Shack(English equivalent) and wire it up so that your pre-out left and right feed into the existing DIN connector which will then use the existing remote power amps.

If you want to do this, count the number of pins on the DIN connector, and look for that type on ebay or radio shack. Don't get the 'mini-DIN' as that is the style that used to be used on PC keyboards and will not work with your radio DIN. There is no set or defined pin assignments for these plugs so figuring out the left and right can be a challenge. If the tag is still on the old radio, it may provide a pinout diagram for the DIN plug, or it may not.

Now, if you want to bypass the existing remote amps, and connect your new stereo direct to the speakers, you have a different challenge. First, you must locate the power amps for the two or four channels. Not sure if the 3.2 has rear speakers or not. Anyway, I think the amps are under the seats, or behind the existing stereo in the center and once you find them, you'll need to determine which wires feed out to the speakers. The way I do it is to wire up the radio completely, and run the speaker wires so that they will reach the power amp area and are under the carpet. Then take the connector/fuse off the power amp so it is not still powered up, and cut or disconnect the wires. Two of the wires lead out to the speaker. You'll put a CD in your new unit, strip back the speaker wires, strip back the wires out of the power amp and then use the new stereo with a CD playing to test the wires until you find the two that run the speaker. Make sure you get left going to left and right going to right.

If you want to take the door panel off, you could look at the color of the speaker wires, and then you wouldn't have to test, just connect the new speaker wire to the existing wires that lead to the door speaker. Maybe you'll be lucky and the pinout for the preamp in your car will have a tag with the wires labelled, or they will have a little cloth tag on them that says "L" "R".

Now, once you have the two sides wired up to the new radio, it's time to worry about phasing. The way speakers are made, the voice coil is either wound clockwise or counterclockwise. This makes a difference in the way your stereo will sound. The rising part of the music wave form can either move the voice coil out toward the inside of the car, or in toward the door panel. If the speakers are out of phase, the sound can be muddy, or seem weak. The way to test, is to put some loud kind of music on, turn up the bass, and turn down the treble control. Make sure the balance is centered. Now sit in the car, and turn it up moderately loud. While the music is playing reach down and reverse the polarity of ONE side speaker. I prefer to do the right side but you can do either side. Just disconnect the temp speaker connection and swap the wires so that they are opposite to what they were. Sit back and listen again. One way, the sound will be more full, and more vibrant, that the other way. That is because on the rising part of the music waveform, the speaker cones will both be moving in, and compressing the air in the car, as opposed to out of phase where one speaker will be moving in, and the other will be moving away from the inside, causing an audible shift in the sound. This is not something that can be easily tested without empirical methods. (of course, for the audio engineers reading this, I know that the music waveform is a mix of many complex signals, but this is the best I can do without going into it in detail)

If you have four channels, adjust the fader to the rear, and do the same job for the rear pair of speakers. There is no phasing between front and back because it is only a two channel system that is split into a 'surround' driver, and the phasing is fixed in the radio.

Now, lets talk about new speakers. You've bought a new radio, but what about the speakers? If you haven't seen the speakers in your car, I can tell you that they were not the best when new, and are most likely worn out by now. to make your new stereo sound the best, you should replace the speakers at the same time or at the very least remove your speakers and have them reconed. Yes, you can do it yourself, but reconing speakers is a job best left to a skilled shop. There are several places to have it done http://www.simplyspeakers.com/speaker-reconing.html, is just one place and I have no affiliation with them. You can also ask at your local stereo shop and they may have some info, but don't ask the young kid, ask the older guy there. I've fit a 8" bass speaker in my car by cutting a large hole where the old speaker was, and mounting the new speaker on the front of the door panel with the speaker frame recessed into the door. It's a tight fit, but unless the magnet is very large, it will work. This sounds amazing with the tweeters up near the top of the door panel and I would highly recommend it. At the very least, get new speakers for your doors if you want to stay stock, or have them reconed.
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Sounds like you are in business. The two sets of wires coming out of the amp labeled SPK_R and SPK_L are the outputs from the amp, so those are the two that you cut, and then connect to your speaker block on the new radio. The DIN cable between the old radio and the amp contain the pre-out signals from the old radio.

While you are in there, it would be a good plan to remove the amp and DIN cables. Block off any 12V supplies that are not used so they don't short.

Don't forget the phasing!

 

You're welcome Peter.

BTW, on mine, the right side comes off which makes it easier to remove; so, two parts. There are screws along the top edge (see picture). Also, the carpet is attached by velcro.
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Whoa there. You should NOT be using the pre-amp outputs from your new radio. You should be using the speaker outputs for each side. The pre-amp outputs are the signals you would feed into your existing external amp that you wanted to bypass. make sure you are using the amplified speaker outputs from your new amp, and not the pre-amp outputs which have far too small a signal to drive speakers.

Next, the tweeters and woofers in the door have a built in frequency separator circuit somewhere. All you have to do is to connect the wires to the speaker connections, and the frequency discrimination is done by the embedded circuitry. It will direct the frequencies from 20Hz up to about 2000Hz to the large speaker, and the range from 2000-16,000Hz to the tweeters(this is an approximation, so engs don't get your panties in a wad).

 

Good on you then, continue.

The outputs for the rear speakers will not be used unless at some time in the future you add a pair of speakers somewhere in the rear of the car. To maximize efficiency in this case, once it's all connected and powered up, go into the audio setup and find the 'fader' control and set it all the way forward. Each mfg uses different lingo and indications but it should have a bar graph on the display with something like this: F ------|-------R. You want to move that | all the way toward the front so you are not driving the rear amp at all. It may use numbers like 0, +7, -7 to indicate front and rear. You can hear the difference once you make the adjustment.

 

Red interior like mine! Cool!

You ripped the carpet out of the side to access the screws? You will need to glue it back on. I removed the two screws, one on each side of the console, and removed the complete assembly from the driver side, I did not unglue the carpet. I can see the three screws from the inside, the heads are still under the carpet. The radio is about 180 mm wide, so pretty much any radio will work.

How are people dealing with the automatic antenna?

 

Well, my car has a manual switch for the antenna. Some radios have antenna control which consists of either two wires that swap polarity for direction, or provide a 12V source to the antenna which does it's own polarity change for up or down.

It's kind of unusual for a modern radio to have an antenna control because they are mostly self contained these days. When the key is on, the antenna goes up, when the key is off, the antenna goes down. It can be moved manually on many cars by a button in the trunk for taking the car through a car wash cycle.

 

Actually, mine "came" that way. One of the many mods these old cars acquire over the years I guess. However, the velcro works very well so, glue not needed.

 

Velcro! Great tip! By removing the complete console only by the two side screws, it needs to be bent a bit to get it out. With the passenger side off first, it just slides towards the driver side.

I have the tape Pioneer with the 6 cd changer in the trunk and an automatic antena. When I turn the stereo on it goes up and down when it is off. No manual switch. Needless to say, there are a lot of cables back there.