1996+ CD changer addition writeup

[rockfangd]

Hello all, So this has been bugging me for the longest time and I have done tons of research on this and I hope to save other people the hassle on a worthy project. And so I will start. This job has been done on my 1996 Deville With base setup.

This Writeup will illustrate how to add the factory CD Changer feature to your 1996-2002 Cadillac Seville, Deville, And Eldorado.

This writeup is for the covered models that do not have a subsystem with the amp setup in the trunk EXAMPLE BOSE Setup (in which case you will already have the provision).

The first illustration is for the 1996 to 1997

On the 1996-1997 there was 3 different option Stereos, The base model without provision for Amp or changer, 2nd model with provision for changer but not for amp setup, and the 3rd and best setup which is the BOSE setup which has both the changer option and the amp.

About 70% of the cadillacs got the 1st model which is the base model, about 20% got the 2nd design without the amp, and about 10% got the 3rd setup with the BOSE. The 1st and second design can be interchanged but the 3rd cannot.

My Cadillac had the Base stup (1st model) and I upgraded to the 2nd design because I did not want to get into completely wiring the car with ap and 11 speakers.

The parts you will need to complete this provision is a 2nd design stereo from a 1996-1997 Cadillac Deville, Seville, Or Eldorado.

1. A second design Stereo.The VIN RPO must be U1L. You will know easily if yo have found a second design stereo because instead of the AM,FM1,FM2, and tape buttons, you will see a source button. The source button is to the right of the volume/ power knob, in the place of the AM, Tape button. (see pics below) Once you have found a second design radio you can unplug your OEM stereo and the replacement will plug right into your harness and work without any special unlocking codes. When you pull the stereo from the donor car I recommend cutting the pigtail with a good length of the harness behind the stereo because you will need 4 wires from the pigtail.

2. You will need A 12 Disc CD changer. You will find this in a vehicle equipped with the provision in the right rear of the trunk near the power antenna. The changer is secured to the floor of the trunk with 2 10mm bolts at the left side of the unit(side toward rear seat) Once you remove the 2 bolts the unit slides toward the rear seat and can be slid out of the rear holder. Save the 2 bolts as you will need them!

3. You will need as much or the harness to the cd changer as you can get. It is pretty easy to remove though. I removed the harness from the donor vehicle complete from the trunk to the dash panel. Here is how you remove the harness.

1. Remnove the carpet and rear seat fuse panel cover.

2. remove the rear seat back and bottom.

3. Remove the 3 sill trim pieces on the passenger side starting with the front, then middle, then rear. They just have push in clips.

4. If you look at the floor once you pull everything above you will see a wiring conduit track that runs from the rear to the front with all of the wires in it. You will need to open all of the conduits to access the wires you need.

5. Start in the trunk and start removing the harness at the right rear by releasing all of the clips you see. There are 7 wires total, 5 run from the trunk to the radio and 2 run from the trunk to behind the rear seat in the feont side of the electrical panel. Once you remove the harness past the trunk the orange wire and the black wire go toward the driver side, Remove as much of the orange wire as you can, and the black wire is bolted to the ground location dead center on the panel behind the rear seat. Once youremove those 2 wires you can start working your way to the front. Now the easy part of the harness is the harness covered in black tape (Do not untape this at all) And there is 1 green wire that you hav to pull with the harness all the way to the front also (this one is not taped)

6 remove the harness as intact as you possibly can.

7. OPTIONAL, take the trunk carpet that has the slits for the changer already or just copy the slits on your trunk carpet. Keep in mind that the eldorado, seville, and Deville carpets are all different, ( so you will not be able to usse a eldorado carpet in a Deville, etc...)

Now you will also need a good section of the harness at the back of the radio unless you can disassemble the dash to pull the harness whole.

Once You have everything you need. Stereo, Changer, Harness, And pigtail you can begin installing it into your vehicle.

Here is how to install the harness into your vehicle. Be sure to disconnect the negative battery terminal!

1. Remove the trunk carpet and rear seat panel cover.

2. Remove the rear seat back and bottom.

3. Remove the 3 right sill trim pieces as stated above.

4. Remove the trim from around the stereo by opening the glove compartment and gently pulling the trim from around the stereo.

5. Remove the stereo.

6. Set the CD changer harness into place and run the black to the same ground you removed it from off of the donor vehicle.

7. Run tthe orange wire with the black wire but toward the fuse panel, I used a fuse addiition style tap to supply the power to the orange wire. The fuse tap plugs in like a fuse but has a slot for a second fuse. I Used a empty fuse slot that had constant power for the tap instead of tapping into a fuse. There is a few empty slots that have constant power so this was very easy.

8. Now you have the 5 wires that run up to the dash to the stereo to run. Run them as far as you can.

9. Next look at the stereo pigtail you picked up with the replacement stereo and compare it with your pigtail in the dash. You will see that everything is the same with the exception of the donor pigtail has 4 extra wires that yourd does not. Look at the plugs and you will see one side of pins is labeled E pins 1-23, and the other side is D pins 1-23. The 4 wires you need are on the E side. (to make it easier the side with the release tab is the E side and the other is D)

10. Remove the tab off of both your pigtail and the replacement pigtail. You will need to Depin pins# E1 which is solid green, Pin E9, which is Black/white., pin E10 which is brown/white, and pin#E11 which is Dark green/ white. and repin these pns into your pigtails available slots. Keep in mind you will have t oseperate the rest of the wires from the donor pigtail to remove the 4 wires. Now you will see there is still tape around the 3 wires with stripes, Again do not remove this tape.

11. Now you can start splicing the wires fro your pigtail into the changer harness you ran from the trunk.

12. At the harness from the trunk very carefully strip about 1 inch of the electrical tape off of the end of the 3 wires and you will see a foil looking tape surrounding the 3 striped wires, and you will also see a bare wire in this bundle also. The foil tape and the bare wire are called the shield ground and you do not want to strip the tape back any more than necessary.

13. Repeat th same procedure with the wiring at the pigtail behind the stereo. Be sure to strip where the foil is present and not where the wires are not shielded.

Now what you will have is 5 wires on the floor and 5 wires at the pigtail at the stereo.

The wires are as follows. Green, Green/ white, Brown/white, black/white, Bare.

What I did was run 5 18 gauge wires from the stereo pigtail through the dash under the glovebox and down to the harness on the floor, Now you can splice them together one at a time. I also might add that I ran a 1/4 conduit from the radio to the floor for the wires to be protected inside the dash. I do not recommend butt connectors, I used bare wire crimp connectors with shrinkwrap tubing.

14. Splice all of the wires together except the bare wire.

15. now splice the bare wire and wrap the foil tape around as best as you can around the wires.

16. Route the wires into the conduit from the trunk to the dash and you can now plug in the stereo and reinstall it into the dash.

17. Install the carpet in the trunk and cut the 3 slits in the carpet, 1 where the cd changer slides in, 1 where the cd changer bolts, and 1 where the wire passes through.

18. Install the CD changer in the trunk and connect the pigtail to the cd changer.

19. Verify that all connections have been made at the fuse panel, Wiring harness, stereo, and changer.

20. You can now reconnect the battery and eject te disc cartridge by opening the cd changer door.

Insert as many cds as you can from 1-12 to verify that the changer runs through all discs properly.

Now if you do not have any cds in the changer the stereo can only be switched between tape and stereo, once you install a cd(s) into the changer the stereo automatically recognizes this and there will be a cd icon on the stereo display and the cd changer is now usable.

Test all of the functions of the stereo, Tape player, and cd changer, And once all is well you can reassemble your interior and Enjoy your new factory provision CD changeer Please dont shoot me for being so specific on all of the steps, This project is not very difficult. Maybe 2 out of 5 on a difficulty scale.

You may have problems if you are not familiar with depinning and repinning pigtails but other than that it is just a time consuming job.

I spent 6.5 hours total on the complete install including completely detailing my interior and removal and installation.

My cost for parts was about 75.00 for the harness, changer and stereo. I reused the original trunk carpet but made the slits for the changer and harness.

Overall I Hated all of the research but the overall job was not bad at all and now anyone else that wants to do this it will be much easier..

I have absolutely no regrets with doing this and I couldnt be happier to have not just a cd player but a 12 disc changer

My motivation comes from me being a complete factory nut and owning A 96 Eldorado ETC that had every feature in the book.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask anything.

[rockfangd]

Here are the pinouts I used If anyone needs them for reference

cd changer.pdf

[rockfangd]

More pinouts from changer to radio

PIN# COLOR GOES TO USE

1. BRN/WHT E10 AT STEREO LEFT AUDIO

2. DGRN/WHT E11 AT STEREO RIGHT AUDIO

3. BLK/WHT E9 AT STEREO REMOTE AUDIO RETURN

4. NCA(BARE) FOLLOWS THE 3 FIRST WIRES. THIS IS USED AS A SHIELD GROUND TO REMOVE INTERFERENCE

5. ORANGE GOES TO FUSE PANEL CONSTANT B+ CONSTANT POWER

6. EMPTY

7. BLACK GROUND (LOCATION G102*) GROUND

8. EMPTY

9. EMPTY

10. GREEN E1 AT RADIO DATA LINE

*G102 IS THE GROUND BEHIND THE BACK SEAT BACK IN THE CENTER. 10MM BOLT

[rockfangd]

now as for the 98+ it seems that aall models were wired for cd changer provision whether it was

BOSE or not. To add the changer provision it seems all you have to do is locate the plug near the antenna in the trunk, you will see there is a plig with a shrinkwrap covered resistor plugged into the pigtail and all you have to do is unplug the plug and plug in the cd changer, and voila you now have a cd changer.

And for the cd changer mounting. Every cadillac has the mount in place already from 1996+ so mounting is no issue.

The theftlock issue starts in 1998+ and will require you to have to take the stereo to a repairshop or dealer to unlock the vin number to your car. But in 1998+ you should not have to change the stereo to make the cd changer function as the feature should already exist in the current stereo.

It seems in 2002+ you cannot unlock a used stereo to your cadillac and if a replacement stereo is needed it must be replaced with a new unit because the vin# is permanently encrypted into the stereo permanently mating the stereo to the BCM/PZM.

I hope this all helps everyone and I will add info as necessary

[rockfangd]

Can someone please tell me how to rename this thread lol. I cannot figure out how to do this? Thanks

[Bruce Nunnally]

I can rename it for you; what do you want it named?

[rockfangd]

Can someone please tell me how to rename this thread lol. I cannot figure out how to do this? Thanks

Please rename the Thread

1996+ CD changer addition writeup.

Thank you very much

[rockfangd]

Just out of curiosity is it possible to sticky this thread?