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Anyone found a Radio Harness that works for NAS Defenders?

1652 Views 33 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  LRNAD90
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So the tape deck has been working sometimes, and not others, and my wife got me a replacement head unit from Crutchfield for Christmas. It came with the "70-1758" wiring adapter (Audi VW, Saab, Merc and 02-03 Freelander)..

I spent an hour or two carefully joining the radio harness to the adapter, pulled the Factory Radio from the truck, and found that the two connectors in the tuck do not plug into the adapter harness. The one will connect to one side of the adapter harness Molex, but the speaker connections plug is both too long, and has the locking clip offset..

I called Crutchfield tech support and discussed with two different techs, who both assured me I had the correct adapter harness. One suggested cutting end out of the Molex block to accept the speaker connector (it has positions for 10 connections, but only uses 8, so in theory could work), except the locking clip is offset on the factory connector, and centered on the Molex adapter, so still won't physically connect. I could theoretically cut the top end of the adapter out so it would plug in and use a zip tie to assure it doesn't come apart I guess..

I searched and found three threads with lots of good info, one of which describes pretty much the same issue back in 2007 with the Crutchfield supplied adapter (way to go updating your documentation Crutchfield). And multiple posts saying just search for a Rover adapter online, but I've done that and come up with nothing.

Was wondering if anyone had come across an adapter that works, I'm NOT cutting the factory harness..

Earlier Threads I located and mentioned above:


There is also an issue with the 1995 that the factory amp needs a turn on lead (no amp in '94, not sure how '97 crosses over). It is covered well in the threads linked above, but worth noting for anyone else that may come across this looking for answers. But this will have to be addressed outside of the adapter I assume?

Ultimately would love to find an adapter harness or pair of harnesses that are exact fits, hoping someone has come across it and I just can't find it with my search skills..

Attached are the further details supplied by Crutchfield tech..

SOLUTION FOR THOSE WHO DON'T WANT TO READ THE WHOLE THREAD - The Metra 70-9400 is the key to installing aftermarket HUs in the 1995 truck with the factory amp.

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Can you take photos of the Crutchfield-supplied harness connector and the factory harness connector?
I swapped my '94 NAS head a couple years ago and also got the Metra 70-1758 Receiver Wiring Harness from Crutchfield. I remember being pleasantly surprised with the simple install (having had flashbacks to my youth of nightmarish installs chasing wires...). I tucked the wire diagram and notes under the cup holder. Will unscrew and see if jogs my brain...
Aren’t those the standard ISO connectors? Make your own adapter following the wiring diagrams for the vehicle.

You can get the connectors with loose pins and crimp/solder them onto the harness that came with the radio.

Like this. Buy M-68-KIT Car Radio Female Speaker & Power 16 Pin ISO Connector
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Can you take photos of the Crutchfield-supplied harness connector and the factory harness connector?
Sure, Here you go, black plug is the adapter harness from Crutchfield..

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Aren’t those the standard ISO connectors? Make your own adapter following the wiring diagrams for the vehicle.

You can get the connectors with loose pins and crimp/solder them onto the harness that came with the radio.

Like this. Buy M-68-KIT Car Radio Female Speaker & Power 16 Pin ISO Connector
The linked connector appears to be the same as that used in the adapter harness supplied by Crutchfield. Would be happy to find the mates to both the gray and pink plugs in my Defender and make my own harness, will poke around on that page and see what I can come up with, thanks..
the VW harness has worked for me in the past with a minor modification, the adaptor is wired so yellow wire is switched and red is memory, if left this manner your radio will always remain powered with or with out key in ignition.
to correct this concern, you swap those two and test, on occasions I have removed from pin locations to set properly, and on other instances I test and simply wire connector yellow to radio power and connector red to radio memory.
Aren’t those the standard ISO connectors? Make your own adapter following the wiring diagrams for the vehicle.

You can get the connectors with loose pins and crimp/solder them onto the harness that came with the radio.

Like this. Buy M-68-KIT Car Radio Female Speaker & Power 16 Pin ISO Connector
I don't see anything on their site that looks like it would work, I emailed their support, see what they say..

the VW harness has worked for me in the past with a minor modification, the adaptor is wired so yellow wire is switched and red is memory, if left this manner your radio will always remain powered with or with out key in ignition.
to correct this concern, you swap those two and test, on occasions I have removed from pin locations to set properly, and on other instances I test and simply wire connector yellow to radio power and connector red to radio memory.
Yes, probably the same harness, and the notes included mention to swap the Red and yellow wires for Land Rover. But the factory connector for power/gnd/illumination plugs in, but the adapter is missing a pin to interface the Amp Turn-on lead. I can probably make a jumper to take care of that.

I may end up cutting the top and bottom of the Adapter off so that the speaker wire plug can connect to the pins, and zip tie it so it doesn't come apart, but would prefer a cleaner solution..
Thanks for the pics. If I understand correctly, the pink connector is the problem, because it's too wide (has two unused spots for terminals) and the mating key is offset. That is part of the factory wiring harness, and you don't want to modify it. I think what I would do is get this: Buy CT21UV01 Car Radio ISO Harness Adaptor to bare ends (or the equivalent from another supplier). The one on the right of their photo looks to be the connector you need to match the Crutchfield harness. You can then de-pin both the new connector and the factory connector, and being careful to put them in correctly, snap the factory pins into the new connector. That would let you get everything hooked up without having to cut the factory harness.
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Here's a photo of my '94 set up into the same crutchfield harness. I guess 94 and 95 were different generally or something was different in yours to have that one larger pink plug. Also a photo of the wiring diagram for 94. good luck --



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now a days radios have 2 power outputs, one interrupted for power antenna, (lowers antenna when using other media) blue white stripe and one for amp turn on (blue), sometimes both are provided in the harness kit, but often times I use the blue white after testing.
Thanks for everyone's time researching and responding, it is much appreciated. Thanks @Pbfender15 for taking the time to take yours apart and snap the photos. That brown connector is what Crutchfield expected I would have. They said they used a '97 truck for their research, so it is really odd that the '95 has the only different connector, I guess it comes down to the radio model used, as the locking clip was offset on the Clarion in the '95 model..

@mgb2 , I assume buying the correct connector and removing the pins from the factory connector and swapping them over would be the best solution. I've never actually tried to do such, but see there are all kinds of 'tools' available for this.

At that point I wonder if the Metra harness is available with the extra pins on the gray plug side to accommodate the amp turn on as well..

@carlosz , thanks for the hints on the turn on leads. It looks like this JVC uses blue/white for the amplifier..

Well, so much for this being easy, but what ever just works out as expected when working on these things?
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Oh I see what’s going on. That pink connector is a 10 pin ISO. You need the matching connector like this one. It looks like Audis came with that too, so maybe you could find an adapter for an Audi.

(I just found it via Google image search. I don’t know anything about this shop. There’s probably one on eBay or somewhere.)

I found the connectors with my usual supplier in Europe. Which radio are you installing? I could make you an adapter. Im trying to calculate in my head what it would cost. I’m gonna say $30 shipped.
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Thanks @Chip for the offer to souce the plugs and build a harness, it is much appreciated!

For now, I ended up cutting the top out of the Crutchfield supplied harness as well as the bottom, allowing me to plug the ten pin connector into the spot meant for the eight pin connector. Not Ideal, but no factory wiring was harmed in the process. To assure nothing comes undone, I ran a couple of zip ties around the connection. My intention is for this to be temporary, ultimately I need to order one of these and just move the factory pin connections over from the ten pin to the eight pin plug. And then replace the Metra 70-1758 block with one that hasn't been cut up to accommodate the 10 pin connection.

I also was able to 'de-pin' (two bent paperclips ended up working) and moved one of the connections in the Crutchfield supplied harness to match up with the amp turn on in the factory gray connector (Yellow Wire in the factory gray connector). Crossed my fingers and reconnected the battery and turned on the the ignition. The radio came to life (at stupid volume levels of course) and is playing through all four speakers. Now I just need to figure out how to manage the settings on it and see how it sounds.

At zero volume there is an awful lot of white noise, which concerns me, but I guess we will see if I have missed something..

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Update number, I dunno, I've lost track..

So it turns out I can't use the speaker level outputs from the new HU to the speaker level inputs on the factory amp. The volume is pretty loud at level 1, and like I mentioned before there is a lot of loud white noise at volume level 0 when hooked up in this manor.

Tech number three from Crutchfield identified the issue as the amp being too strong in the new HU, advising they see this frequently. Initially he was going to send me a line level convertor to be able to 'turn down' the level of the outputs. But since the new head unit has pre-amp outputs, he sent me the Metra 70-9400 harness/adapter.

This still uses the same block from the original Metra 70-1758 Harness, but only has connections on the power side of the block (Gray Plug), and has an additional harness with four RCA connections to a ten pin plug that the pink speaker plug from the factory plugs into without modification.




I'm currently still using the original adapter for the gray plug connections as I modified it by moving a connection in the plug to interface with the amp turn on lead for the factory amp. But have disconnected the pink speaker plug from this harness and connected it to the harness with the RCA connections.

Success! Volume levels seem more realistic now, but I've only listened to it in the garage thus far. Still need to adjust settings and hear it on the road to make a final decision. I'm somewhat concerned that the line level outputs (4v) will not drive the amp enough (since it is looking for speaker level inputs), and I won't be able to get enough volume, but we'll see.

For those of you following along, The Metra 70-9400 seems to be the key to installing aftermarket HUs in the 1995 truck with the factory amp.

(I'll see if I can edit the original post wit that info for the sake of the next poor soul searching for the same solution)
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Oh yeah, so onto the physical mounting. It appears my factory radio was held in primarily by gravity, and with a little help from the cracked and warped plastic fascia piece (I'm surprised no one has 3D scanned and printed replacements for these, I've spent a couple of days carefully gluing it back together now). The mounting sleeve for the head unit was not physically secured to anything. Am I just lucky, or did others find the same thing?

So now onto seeing if I can finagle a way to actually screw the mounting sleeve to the center console, working the limited space of the single DIN opening. If anyone has experience with this to share, please do..
That's awesome you found the right harness adapter. Maybe it would be best to replace the factory amp though. Run RCA cables to the new amp from the head unit and connect the speakers to it.

I found that too about the cubby radio mounting, so I cut out a piece of wood to secure the head unit into the opening. That was before I got another cubby with a plastic fascia in better shape. Maybe I'll cut out a sheet of aluminum and screw that in to go underneath the fascia.
That's awesome you found the right harness adapter. Maybe it would be best to replace the factory amp though. Run RCA cables to the new amp from the head unit and connect the speakers to it.
That is the long term plan, as well as a small powered subwoofer, probably in the MudUK Sub locker under the console. I think I have narrowed the amp choice down to the Soundstream Reserve RSM4.1200D. It is nice and compact and puts out 75w x 4 RMS with .05% THD (though not sure the lower THDs makes a difference in the very poor listening environment that is a soft top D90).

I'd want to mount the amp in the same location as the factory amp, which is about 8.25" l x 6.5" w x 1.5" d, so it limits my choices..

Haven't decided on a Subwoofer yet though (maybe a Kicker 46HS10 or Sound Ordinance B8PD), and will likely wait and do these together.

I found that too about the cubby radio mounting, so I cut out a piece of wood to secure the head unit into the opening. That was before I got another cubby with a plastic fascia in better shape. Maybe I'll cut out a sheet of aluminum and screw that in to go underneath the fascia.
So crazy that Land Rover didn't even secure the radio in the cubby?!?!
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