Wanting to throw the original radio back in my truck.

[Fireball5657]

Basically title, I’m tired of cheap aftermarket radios that just don’t fit right or look good, the functionality is nice, but it just doesn’t match the rest of the interior and my truck is my daily driver so the small things bother me. Anyways, my truck is a 94 Sierra and it had the UX1 radio which is described as “RADIO,AM/FM STEREO, WEATHER, CASSETTE, EQUALIZER, ETR, INCLUDES CLOCK” Is this the one with the graphic equalizer? If it is, then could I buy an original radio on eBay and just hook it up? The wires on the stock radio should be the same color as the trucks harness, so it’s as easy as connecting red to red or blue to blue etc, right? Any help is appreciated!

 

[AK49BWL]

That is the one with the 5 band digital graphic equalizer, yes. Dunno where it gets weather from tho, I'm like 99.999% sure none of the factory radios had that.

I have a thread in the Electronics section spilling out what part numbers you want to look for when searching for a CDM - aka the brain unit. In my tests, the higher part numbers are generally better.

https://www.gmt400.com/threads/88-94-factory-stereo-info.48716/

As long as your harness wasn't cut, you don't even need to worry about the wiring. Just plug the three pieces in and go.

 

[Fireball5657]

That is the one with the 5 band digital graphic equalizer, yes. Dunno where it gets weather from tho, I'm like 99.999% sure none of the factory radios had that.

I have a thread in the Electronics section spilling out what part numbers you want to look for when searching for a CDM - aka the brain unit. In my tests, the higher part numbers are generally better.

https://www.gmt400.com/threads/88-94-factory-stereo-info.48716/

Awesome, thanks man. AFAIK my truck is nearly loaded but i didn’t know if it had the fancy equalizer or not. As far as the brain goes, I’ve seen a few listings on eBay that have the head unit, cassette/equalizer, and the brain all as one bundle, could I just buy that and call it good, or is there a real difference between each brain?

The weather thing is weird, I know it’s pretty common to see the temperature in the rear view on the 95+, but I’ve never seen a 88-94 with a factory compass or temp. I looked up the UX1 radio on Google and it seems to also refer to a 3rd gen Camaro radio so maybe the weather thing refers to that.

 

[AK49BWL]

Generally when radios refer to weather, it means 7 channels of weather information, referred to as "Weather Band".

As long as a CDM designed for the equalizer is used with the equalizer tape deck, it really doesn't matter what part number you use. You just want to make sure you don't end up with a 2-band CDM because the equalizer will then only let you adjust the far low and far high bands, not the three in between. Just reference the part number you're looking at to that thread to make sure they're combining the right parts.

 

[Fireball5657]

Generally when radios refer to weather, it means 7 channels of weather information, referred to as "Weather Band".

As long as a CDM designed for the equalizer is used with the equalizer tape deck, it really doesn't matter what part number you use. You just want to make sure you don't end up with a 2-band CDM because the equalizer will then only let you adjust the far low and far high bands, not the three in between. Just reference the part number you're looking at to that thread to make sure they're combining the right parts.

Huh, TIL.

Weird how they changed the brain over the years.

A bit off topic, but how hard would it be to hook my subwoofers up to the stock radio? They were in the truck when I got it and while I'm no basshead, I do like the extra kick and would like to keep the subs around. It has its own amp under the front seat and the subs are under the rear seats. As far as I can tell, the amp is connected to the battery directly and the amp seems to only control the subs, the 4 factory speakers still run to the radio.

And final question, will the wiring be as simple as matching the colors and combining since it's the stock radio for the truck, or is there going to be more to it?

Again, thanks for the help

 

[AK49BWL]

You'll need a line-level converter if you intend to run the amp with the factory head. This converts your speaker outputs to that of RCA outputs - unless the amp has speaker level inputs, in which case you can wire direct. The speaker outputs are as follows:

LF+ Tan
LF- Gray
RF+ Light Green
RF- Dark Green

LR+ Brown
LR- Yellow
RR+ Dark Blue
RR- Light Blue

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by combining wire colors.

 

[Fireball5657]

You'll need a line-level converter if you intend to run the amp with the factory head. This converts your speaker outputs to that of RCA outputs - unless the amp has speaker level inputs, in which case you can wire direct. The speaker outputs are as follows:

LF+ Tan
LF- Gray
RF+ Light Green
RF- Dark Green

LR+ Brown
LR- Yellow
RR+ Dark Blue
RR- Light Blue

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by combining wire colors.

When I look up a listing for a factory radio, like this one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/88-94-Chev...104668?hash=item3db5fa9a5c:g:d7AAAOSwbmJgIfVr there are a few loose male plugs that I don't have the female ends to anymore since my truck has had more than a few aftermarket radios in it over the years; and since this is an original radio, I guess I thought that I would have to take the wires from the loose male plugs and crimp them together with trucks harness to get the radio to work. I may be overthinking this, but I just want to make sure that I have all the information I need before I drop 200-300 on a factory radio setup.

 

[AK49BWL]

Ah, I see what you're getting at - hopefully the 3 factory plugs (two 4 pin and a 6 pin) for the radio are still in the dash with an adapter harness, and if so, then all the plugs you see in that listing actually plug into the various pieces of the radio - the little white plug with the white and yellow wires plugs into the back of the cassette deck behind the equalizer, and the 6 or 7 pin plug from the head goes to the brain unit, as does the 9 pin connector from the tape deck.

Also, YMMV but I've had good luck pulling radios from salvage trucks.... Much cheaper.

 

[Fireball5657]

So this is the only plug that I could find that might work for the radio, it is connected to a harness that goes to the aftermarket radio. The antenna also looks like it has an extension wire on it too.

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[AK49BWL]

Yep, perfect. That there, unplug it and it plugs directly into the brain unit. No splicing needed