I've got a 1986 240 wagon with a crappy OEM radio and am replacing the radio.

I picked up ($10.00 at a garage sale) an OEM radio complete with the upper face plate, but with no wiring and no idea of what the connections are. Then I got a radio wiring connector to fit this radio out of a 1992 240 in a junkyard. The radio has part number VO1510 C3304126E and in addition to the 14 pin connector, has a 6 pin DIN plug on the back.

But, the colors on the connector are not like the colors on the origional '86 radio.

What I've got is black, 14 pin flat connector, two rows of seven pins each.
Pin numbers and colors as follows:
7 - white 6 - white/yellow
9 - Red/green 8 - blue
11 - orange 10 - black
12 - green/grey
The other pins have no connections.

Question #1 - what are the connections for power, ground and speakers in this radio?
Question #2 - I think the DIN plug is for a seperate power amp. Do I need the power amp?

Yes, I could get an aftermarket radio, but being a cheap bugger I would like to try to get my $10 investment working first. I do know what the connections are on the '86 240 this radio is going in. Thanks!

When you go back to the junkyard for an amp, look around till you find the 6-pin din cable and get it, too (often left plugged into the amp when the radio is removed). Also get the wiring harness from the 14-pin connector on the amp. Disregard the colors, and look at the pin-out specifications listed here on the board.
To save yourself time when you bugger up or later want to change the wiring job, label all wires with the pin numbers from the connectors, and all original wires with the fuse number or the code from the factory wiring diagram.
If you want a look at various amps you are likely to run into, try the volvoworld site. Note that the wiring harness and radio / amp connectors changed in mid-1989, but volvo made adapter connections, and you can also if necessary.
If you are going back to the junkyard soon, please email me--maybe I can buy some connectors and cables from you if you find spares. No Volvos in any of the yards around where I am.

Those colors don't make any sense. Are they on the wire harness from the 92 240 or on the new radio? I am guessing the harness you got out of the 92 240 had a power amp, because it only has seven wires. So the harness you have probably does not have any speaker wires in it(all the speakers were hooked up to the power amp). But the colors still don't match. Most of the colors should be the same as your 86, and the ones that aren't you should not need.

search this board with terms like " 14 pin". Although the wire colors changed occasionally, you should find that the pin-outs are pretty much the same after mid-1989 up to around 1996(?).
ALLDATA DIY has wiring diagrams which should help, along with a lot of other info well worth the 25 bucks.
Unless you have really good ears, or insist on sharing your musical taste with the neighborhood, the Volvo amps are not bad once you replace the miserable speakers.
If you're going to be back at that junkyard soon and have time to grab some extra wiring, please let me know.

Well, in sticking with Volvo OEM radios you've gone from one frying pan to the other... but at least the price was right. I just replaced the radio in the kids' 240 but that was in Connecticut and I just moved to Arizona, and I don't have the color codes here.

What I can tell you is that the DIN output goes to what is laughingly called an "amp" which drives rear speakers, which you likely don't have.


I hope others can identify the colored leads, but if you're impatient you can try this - I'm pretty sure the white and white/yellow are left front speaker, and there should be a gray as well as gray/green for the right front speaker. Black should be ground. Blue is a power antenna lead, so you can tape it and ignore it. Orange should be power, probably the switched. Red/green is probably the constant power. You should also have a brown lead for illumination.

Thanks for the help so far. I would agree with Jessie that the colors don't make sense. The plug is from a 92 240 in the junkyard. The garage sale radio did not have a plug, but I'm guessing that the plug is keyed to only fit the radio and so I might be able to make this work.

I thought the amp powered the rear speakers only.

If this had a grey wire then I would go along with Smitty's assumptions on the colors - I actually looked at harnesses on two cars and both were the same as far as colors and pin connections.

BTW - the 86 wagon that this might be going in has 4 speakers with the fader knob on the panel. From what I can tell, the original radio only had an output for two speakers.

92 radios had 2 configurations: 1 without a power amp and 1 with. The power amp version was 4 channel driving all 4 speakers. IF you had a wire harness for a radio without a power amp you should have 11 wires (all the standard Volvo colors too). Like most Volvo radios, it is only set up to drive front speakers. If I were you I would try to pick up a Volvo power amp at the junkyard, possibly from the car you got the plug from. I bet it is still there because nobody wants them. The radio will sound way better with a power amp anyway. If you do this you will only need to find the power wires for the radio.