Thread: Discovery 1 1996 V8i - radio issues

Hello! Wondering if anyone could help me with a couple things, my previous owner has removed the CD stacker and under seat amp and they must have bypassed as the radio still turns on but the display shows up with a number you can cycle through to 9 and then the radio itself engages but after listening to the radio for a few minutes it shuts off and you have to do that again, wondering if this is a normal issue? I’m going to attempt to pull out the stock unit and replace with my jvc head unit, will I need additional wiring or a harness to do this or can I just make it work? Lastly I can’t find any information on removing stock unit only for later models, it seems to have four small holes around the corners of the unit, anyone know if these are torx screws or something in there? Any advice much appreciated, stoked on the rover just want to get the tunes working and hopefully quiet down the exhaust a bit (has a deep constant note that is a recipe for headaches)

Originally Posted by AK83

sounds like the head unit requires the activation code to get it up and running again .. or something like that.

I'm pretty sure that the original radio units of this era have a pair of tools that you slide into the side of the head unit to get it to pop out of its cage.
Like your JVC head unit should have those slid in prongs, but they look like C shaped hoop things.

Have you removed the lower trim piece yet?
Just below the radio unit is a thin trim piece too. I'm not sure if you have to remove it, but on one of the old (aftermarket) head units in my D1, it did stop the unit sliding out easily.

Thanks mate! It wasn’t a code situation or anything, once I got it out (with screw drivers and a little motivation) you can see someone has cut the wiring harness to bypass the amp and disc changer they removed and installed an aftermarket and then must have rewired the original tape deck back in before selling, they looked like they were in a rush so I cut the harness off behind the first connection into the head and found a diagram for original wires and colours then just matched that to my jvc diagram, it’s all working well now! Except for some reason the diagram had the 12v constant and ignition switch wires back to front so everytime I started the car my head was reset to demo mode, I pulled her out switched those two wires and it works great now! Tweeters are terrible though and when I attempted to pull of a pillar interior trim I broke the top plastic tab off as it’s brittle so hesitant to keep trying to remove that!! Currently now tackling the many connections and rubber hoses that lead to nowhere inside the engine bay arggghh