My wife's 1998 Honda CR-V has a factory CD player with an option for adding a trunk-mounted CD changer or a half-din tape player.

I'm not planning on installing either of those things at the moment, but I would like to use its CD changer input as an aux-in, in anticipation of the next Rio hard disk portable. The folks at www.rcainput.com have adapters just for this purpose.

The problem is that I need to know whether the factory stereo has an 8-pin input or a 14-pin input on the back. If I don't know this ahead of time, I'll likely buy the wrong adapter.

Okay, fine, I'll look back there and see which it is. I head over to www.installdr.com and see if they've got dash-dismantling instructions. Ah, they do, and it even looks like the right dash in their photos (although the stereo is a different one). Oh my God, it's like trying to break into fort knox. I have to take most of the dash apart just to get to the place where I can unscrew the stereo and look behind it.

Okay, it's a given that I'm going to have to dismantle her dash to install the RCA input adapter, but that's a mega-big job just to "have a look" and then close it up again. I'd rather just dismantle it once for the installation.

Does anyone know where I can find out what kind of connecters her stereo has on the back, based on the stereo's appearance from the front?

Just a thought, but if this is for a trunk mounted CD changer, can you look at the wireing going to the trunk and see what kind of connector it has? I'm not really sure where in a CRV they'd put a "trunk" mounted CD player, but then I've never owned one.

Or perhaps just giving crutchfield a call? Everyone says they know everything...

Matthew

Actually, it might not be trunk mounted, maybe it's somewhere else, I dunno.

But even if it did, looking at the connector in the trunk won't tell me the number of pins at the head unit. They could be different connectors at each end.

Well, it looks like it's this model, from this site. That might help a little, or does it?

Thanks, that's the right model.

Of course, I see this *after* putting the car all back together.

I went ahead and dismantled it to get a good look at the plugs on the back. It was the 8-pin DIN plug. Ordering the adapter now.

Wow, that's an extremely large PITA to get the radio on the CR-V out from the dash. I'm glad I only have to do it once more.

Thanks, that's the right model.

Of course, I see this *after* putting the car all back together.

Maybe that'll learn you to wait at least 24 hrs after posting a question here...

Maybe that'll learn you to wait at least 24 hrs after posting a question here...

Nah, Tony expects the same bot-like response time that he gives us each and every day.

I'm still not convinced that Tony isn't just a bot.

I've met him a number of times and i'm still not convinced either!

I think a bot would tend to learn to do a heel-side turn on a snowboard quicker than me...

Back in the direction of the original topic on this thread: My wife tried to turn on her air conditioner the day after I dismantled her dash, and it made a funny noise and quit working. The air compressor doesn't engage. She said when she turned it on, it made a funny noise from the engine compartment, similar to the sound that you would expect to hear if you'd driven over a plastic bag that accidentally got wrapped around an axle (thwap-thwap-thwap-thwap then silence). I'm reasonably sure I didn't do anything wrong. I'm sure I plugged the harnesses back in correctly, and they were all keyed and polarized so that I couldn't make a mistake. I didn't change anything on this trip into her dash, I only inspected the radio's back panel so I could determine the plug type, then put everything back together.

On the one hand, I'm hoping I didn't do anything wrong so that I don't have to feel guilty. On the other hand, if it's just a loose wire to the control panel, that's certainly easier and cheaper to fix than a belt or a compressor...

Follow-up. The adapter part came in (turns out it's made by PIE). Installed the part. Clean, plug-in installation, works as advertised. It has two RCA jacks coming out of it, which I attached via some soldering and some adapters to an 1/8" stereo mini jack mounted cleanly in the storage pocket below the stereo. Plugged a portable MP3 player into it, sounded great, albeit at a slightly lower relative volume than the CD player. Now, I have only to wait for the Pearl to come out.

Regarding the air conditioner: I can't see that I did anything wrong. All wiring is correct, all buttons and knobs work and do what they're supposed to do. Everything about the air conditioner appears to work except the "cold" part. For instance, when I press the AC button, the engine lugs and I can hear the compressor under the hood engage and begin working, so I know she didn't lose a belt. Afraid to look under the hood now, fearing I'll see a hose that popped off.

You sure you didn't maybe turn the heater all the way up?

You sure you didn't maybe turn the heater all the way up?

Yes. I checked the functionality of all the climate controls. Fan turns on and speed adjusts correctly when I twist that knob. Each of the vent positions works correctly when I twist that knob. Fresh/Recirc button does the correct thing. And when I twist the hot/cold knob, it does correctly go back and forth between heated air and non-heated air. The only thing is that the non-heated air isn't being cooled (despite the fact that I can hear the compressor engage when I press the AC button).

I don't know how under-the-hood you want to get with this but I'm sure that you already have a good grasp of the basic principles on how a/c works? With this basic knowledge perhaps you can determine 'how much' of the system is working, i.e. you should have a bit that gets warm and a bit that gets cold and make a decision from there? If you're looking for model specific knowledge then apologies for the 'noise'

Edit: Spilling

here's a little app i worked on a few years ago at cars.com. check out the heating/ac section, and walk through the steps.

i'm sure tony knows how all this works, but it's a nifty diagram, i think.

--dan.

Hey. That's pretty cool actually

- Trevor

Thanks, guys. That's pretty... cool... information.

I'm at the point, though, where I'm going to leave the A/C repair up to a professional. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something I did.

I linked this thread a few minutes ago for someone else, and re-reading it, I realize I never did a follow-up on the air conditioner problem. Turned out that it was the belt breaking, I should have just looked under the hood. Anyway, she got it all sorted out shortly after it happened. And the mechanic did it for her for free because they had, just a couple weeks prior, given her car a tune-up and said they inspected the belts and that the belts didn't need replacing.