1993 Previa oem radio replacement

December 18, 2017

We have a 93 previa that has a dead radio. I decided to change it with another aftermarket radio that one of my brothers gave me. The oem is a dual din and the after market is a single din. I figured this should be a simple swap after getting the radio wire harness and a cubby. Needless to say, it hasn't gone as simple as I thought.

Here's what the old oem unit looks like. I thought I could maybe clean it and it might work. It turns out it's burnt inside. So that's that. Taking that under dash tray is a pain in the royal behind, but I got it done.

Here's what the radio plug looks like. This is where the oem radio is plugged into. It also has these two antenna wires. A normal size and a smaller diameter version. I'm still trying to find an adapter that can plug into an after market radio. So basically a Y adapter but with two different sizes for these to fit.

This is a closeup of the right hand side hole where one of the screws that you have to take out from the bottom is.

 And here's the left side. You can barely see them from the bottom so I just took these from the top. I'm no contortionist.

Here's the back of the oem radio. A single plug and the two antennas on the bottom right.

The oem radio had cd and tape which was nice, but it's now dead, really dead.

Now here is the radio plug and one that I bought from ebay which is already soldered to the aftermarket radio. Notice the different pin numbers. So this is not going to work as it is.

The new or old donated head unit. Nothing special, not even BT, but this will do for now, I can get the correct wiring or find the correct way to get it done properly.

So here are both radios now. These are the two after market adapters from ebay, but the car has only one connector for the radio. At least that is what it was using.

Taking the oem brackets off so I could just move the radio and test fit the cubby. That is also not looking so good there.

The other side.

Another closeup of the back of the oem radio.

And here's the opening in all its glory. It's not too bad once you figure it out and get that other part out of the way which is a royal pain. I still have to put it back together so I'm trying to get this working before I try to do that.

The car does have two other plugs at the back that kind of match the after market adapters, but I found the wire colors are not the same at all. They just don't match up. So I need to figure out what those are, but I don't have the book at the moment. I have no idea what those others are for.

Here you can see the difference in size. I wasn't sure if this was for an amp at the beginning but I guess I don't have to worry about that for now.

So here's what I'm staring at now. An empty space with no radio...okay I went ahead and put it all back together as it was so that I can look into this a bit more. There is nothing better than an untouched oem adapter. It just makes new installations much easier. So use the after market adapters to connect your radio, it will make a world of difference.

Here's the kit I got from ebay. The colors do match the after market radio, but that's about it. The pins don't match the single plug the oem radio was using. So now I have to try to find that single plug adapter instead of the one I got with the cubby since those aren't the ones I need. From what I can tell, unless there's something I'm not seeing.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/TOYOTA-CAR-STEREO-RADIO-DASH-INSTALLATION-MOUNTING-POCKET-KIT-WIRE-HARNESS/351932668323?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

December 19, 2017
Update. After doing a little more reading and sending a couple of emails I went ahead and plugged the new radio into those other two plugs that you see in the back on the left side in the picture above. The adapter above fits those perfectly. I did find out that the colors won't match, however as long as you make sure that you connect them correctly to the stereo you will be fine. Once I did this the radio worked fine. I didn't have to unplug or do anything to the amp which I also found while installing this. I only used one antenna and left the smaller one there without plugging into anything. The radio worked better than the oem since now I can also hear the radio. I would turn the radio all the way up on the old one and couldn't even hear it. It's got a new life again.

The one thing I had to figure out was how to mount it on the oem brackets as those are metal and it's what holds that front plastic trim as well.

Here's the oem bracket and how it sits on the oem radio. I was trying to find the correct holes for the new radio.

These are the holes that actually aligned correctly on the new radio.

I was able to still used the oem screws on the new radio as well which was great. You can also see where the new cubby fits as well. It's not oem but at least I was able to use it.

One thing I later found is that I could not use the cubby trim that you see here. It just would not fit with the original trim which I was not going to modify.

Here's the other side. The new bottom piece comes with those plastic screws so I was left with some of these oem screws. Not a big deal.

I did try to see if I could move the radio back more, but that just would not work. The face sticks out but when not on, it's pretty much flush with the trim.

Here's the final assembly and as you can see here, the only thing I was not able to use was the radio trim and the cubby trim pieces. This meant It wasn't going to look oem. I also didn't use that sleeve the radio comes with as I decided to use the original screws to hold it down instead. The cubby sits at a steep angle so at least dad has a place to keep his phone now instead of losing it on the floor. In short, depending on the type of cubby you buy, that will also determine the final look. Again, I didn't want to change the original trim here so this is what this ended up being. This can always be changed but so far at least it's functional and I was able to use the parts without spending an arm and a leg. And now there's a radio that works. This is what I had to work with and so far it turned out fine.

I bought my previous radio from crutchfield and I decided to email them about this, and they were very nice and did get back to me which is what helped me finish the installation. I also watched the video here which also helped me a bit more on this. I just didn't need to install anything with the amp for my radio to work. I like to make sure I have everything I need before just plugging things in, so I wanted to make sure I had done things correctly before plugging mine in. It took a little longer but at least it got done and nothing was shorted. I have been installing my own car radios since I was in high school.