I'm hoping to find the time to do a full write up on my installation of auxiliary radio input to my S40 T5 model 2005 and using a wired FM modulator but I wanted to share these images in case someone needs it sooner... :thumbsup:

Greg

PS: I'll write more detail later in the ipod threads...

Attached thumbnail(s)

Thanks for the pics!!! One of these days I'm going to take my car apart again because I want to see what the connectors look like. These pics will definite help!

Not what i thought it would look like or where i heard. Good lookin out! :beer:

Any followup to this?

I just went digging today to try to find it another, more easily accessible location in my 05 S40 2.4i, but I couldn't find it on the hatrack nor the side of the trunk, so I guess it's in the pillar like that?

The reason I went after the other ones first is that there were written directions from volvo on http://vccs.volvocars.se/accessories/ii/search.aspx about how to access what I thought was the radio in another location.

I've spent most of the day trying to find directions on how to not demolish my car trying to wire in my new sirius radio... :/

Quick advice… I don’t know if it will apply for you but the connection to the AFM is after the amplification using connector that comes out of it. A second set of connectors are available further down the line (and thus closer to the radio which is better on a noise stand point).
On my 2005 model there is a white box containing the same connector behind the carpet under/behind the left foot driver rest (Left side to the stearing column). If I had found an easy way to route cable in a clean way there I would have done it instead. The rear pillar is a real pain to remove. You also have to watch out to not damage air bag…

Greg :beer:

Wired? What model and from where? How is the sound??

I ended up doing the whole install for a Sirius car hookup kit all yesterday. After much frustration, I finally had it all done. I've got it hooked up to the left hand side of the windshield using the suction cup, but all the wires are either hidden in the side panel, or underneath the steering wheel up in the plastic.

Eventually I'll get around to wiring in the power with hard wire, versus just using a cigarette lighter plug which I'm using now.

I ended up giving in and buying the $3 pdf guide to how to do the FM modulator mod. It was helpful in showing exactly how to make the antenna cables, but the rest were diagrams of the wrong things in the wrong places with a different install procedure.

I also must have broken a dozen of those yellow plastic pull-out tab things, so I'm wondering if I can buy a box of them online or from the dealership for a few bucks.

Man was that a royal PITA.

Oh, and the sound is actually surprisingly very good. I thought it would come in like regular FM modulation which my unit can do wirelessly, but it sounds much better with significantly less hiss undertones than the wireless.

Yes when done right the sound is quite good I think. Did you end up using the 9v battery connector technique or the AFM connector technique?

Greg

Yea the sound is quite decent. I drove through about 10-15 counties today going back up to school, and only once did I have to change the frequency because of distortion. Instead of the channel being blown away by a local channel, it just starts to hiss more and more, and when you turn your aux item off, you'll hear a radio channel coming in full blast, so then you just change frequencies (easier for me to do while driving because it was a satellite radio menu) and change your listening frequency in the car, and you're ready to go.

I ended up using the 9v battery connector technique. what a huge freakin PITA, but whatever. I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't have the foresight (or money) to just do the Kenwood in-line unit so I could do iPod too, but who has the time/money for that these days? (maybe when my stocks start bouncing back we can talk :P )

Thank you to anyone who has been a help to this thread, this forum, and this idea of installing AUX audio in the S40 :)

I'm still interested in checking out what the AFM has to offer me, but now that I've got all the junk wired up in my back passenger area, I'll probably leave it.

BTW I ended up just using the stock Sirius FM modulation hookup. I kept the 9v->Mtrla->FMMOD->mtrla-> 9v all up in the plastic housing in the rear area. I ran the satellite FMmodulator cable down the side of the car underneath all of the pull-up plastic molding, up the side, and to the left of the driver side, and I've got the radio itself hooked up hanging from a suction cup from the windshield and all the wires go there, but are hidden under the plastic siding there. The antenna is temporarily mounted in the center of the dash against the front of the windshield with double sided tape, hidden behind my radar detector, so it doesn't bother me, and the wire was pushed down into the front crevice with a plastic spoon end. The power is using the 12v outlet in the front console, as eventually I'll get creative with it and hard wire it, but for now I'm not sure if I'm going to stick with the radio I installed (it was free from someone with a few months of service left on it) and if I decide to go with a better/newer/nicer radio, I might actually go and hard wire that one in and make it nice with no wires to be seen anywhere. Right now all you see are the wires from the back of the cradle go into the siding of the car, and then a 12v power connector that comes out of the plastic under the steeringwheel. The rest is hidden under the steeringwheel and in the siding of the left side of the car.

If I were to do it again, I would run longer wires for the 9v->MTRLA and the return of it and wrap them once up in the top, then run them down to the top of the hatdeck like where the other volvo models have the AFM at, just so I wouldn't have to tear up the molding every time I want to mess around with it. The hatrack is easy enough to remove, but the plastic stuff is a pain.

Hello-
I am new to the forum, but have been following this topic for a bit and have a quick, probably stupid, question. This afternoon I finally attempted to install an FM modulator. After accessing the AFM near the rear window, I decided that I would rather use the connection under the driver's dead pedal. I pulled up the carpet and found the white box with the connection inside. My question is this: the connectors have 2 wires running to each end, but if i use the EU10 and 20 adapters that everyone seems to recommend, obviously only one wire from each end can be connected. Perhaps i'm going about this completely wrong, i dont know. So which wire from each end do i connect the adapters too? or is there an adapter that will connect both wires? Or is it only necessary to connect one wire from each end? Thanks in advance for any help!!

-Mike

Mike,

Let me say first that you are on the right track.
Here is the catch. I believe that the FM requires only one cable line at a time. So for FM purposes it doesn’t matter very much witch one you are using? However both wires are required for AM. It probably has to do with the resistance specification needed for AM and FM. None the less once you will have used one of the two connections you will loose AM. I haven’t heard anyone that was able to do differently. I will eventually come up with something as I would like to get the AM back.

So the point is that you only need to disconnect one set and plug to that one. To my experience it doesn’t matter which one.

More important I run into some issue when using the MTRL2MCX connector I had found on circuit city I believe.
One was mal to mal and the other one female to female. When I used those I got terrible quality, a lot of noise.
Later I looked at my install again and realize that by doing so I was switching the antenna input and output of my Kenwood KOS A200.
What happen is that the Kenwood (or modulator) would output to the AFM amplifier in the direction of the antenna, it would loop back through the AFM then back out on the other connection to the radio.

I don’t know if that is the case on your modulator (my guess would be it is) but ideally you want the cable coming from the antenna (and/or AFM amplifier) to plug into your modulator system and then from the output to the radio. Keep in mind that these MCX connections from the AFM are not input but output and that it is where the FM signal is coming from.

Long story short I had to modify myself the cables so to get a set built as such:
MTRL female to MCX male
MTRL mal to MCX female

I don’t know if there are cables out there that do that. It wasn’t easy but I was comfortable dealing with cutting the cable ends and reattaching it all in the correct order and then adding proper shielding.

FYI: not that time but for some USB cable I made myself as well I used some steel whole to shield my cable. It works great but you need to make sure humidity is low or that it is lubricated to avoid corrosion. If well protected by some heat shrink tubing it should be fine.

I hope this help and that I didn’t make things more confusing. :thumbsup:

Greg

Greg,
Thank you for the quick response. I hardly ever listen to AM so losing it shouldnt be a large concern if I only connect one wire. Regarding the male/female connectors on the cable, i believe the ones i have are Motorola female to MCX male, and Motorola male to MCX female, but i don't have them in fromt of me, so i am not 100 percent sure. If not, i think i should be able to do the necessary surgery. I hope to have time later this week to give the process another shot. Thanks again for the help!! I'll be sure to post and let you know how it turns out.

-Mike

Gregoire,

Not sure if you read these threads every now and then, but I have one quick question for you, or anyone else that may know the answer to this. (as I don't want to destroy my car by assuming)

I want to use an FM Direct Adapter for my external Sirius Radio that I have just installed, obviously using my stock stereo as the output for actual audio levels.

I know I also need the Volvo Antenna Adapters to do so.

The question is, where do I plug the adapters in? In a standard stereo, the antenna plug is just in the back of the unit, but for the S40, I keep reading about the AFM, is this what I am actually connecting to in my situation?

Also, the FM Direct Adapter for Sirius doesn't require a power source, and many posts here are talking about using a FM Modulator that needs power. I wonder if this is just different technology that Sirius uses.

So, to recap: when installing the FM Direct Adapter, am I doing so behind the stereo (if there is an actual antenna input on the unit), or in the back where one AFM is, or in the front drivers side AFM, behind the carpet (white box I have read about)?

Thanks to you or anyone who may reply to this.

William,

Yes I pick in now and then and help when ever I can. :thumbsup:

It seems that you indeed want to tap directly into your antenna to wire your Sirius radio. There is two ways to do this:

One is to wire your "fm modulator" (as it seems that's what it is) behind the rear driver side V pillar. You have to remove the triangular cover, which is very difficult to do, and then you have to be very careful with the airbags. The all process in quite painful but I found it to be the best to manage wires. That depends on what you do of course. I had a Kenwood interface unit in the rear.

Another solution is to connect it behind the carpet on the left side and behind the left driver’s foot rest. Behind there is a white box witch contained the same connector you will find in the rear. This is a better solution for sound I believe but wiring might be harder to hide.

The AFM unit (small green box in my 2005 model) I come to conclude is a signal amplifier and filter. Regardless of what option you go with you have to think hard of the order in which the signal comes in your adapter and leaves again the adapter.
The original connectors I used were the wrong ones; I ended up making my own. Your connector needs to have both one end male and one end female (MCX male 2 Motorola female, & Motorola male 2 MCX female). The best way is to follow the antenna wire.

I can not remember the order between male and female of the cable adapter but from the rear windshield antenna wire you should connect it to your adapter cable that leads in the “modulator unit” input then from the output of you modulator unit you should connect your second cable adapter to the antenna wire that ultimately leads to the radio head unit. If you use the rear connection don’t worry too much about the AFM, think of it as a bypass connector, and just follow the antenna path direction.

FYI: the connector to which you need to plug your cable adapters has two antenna wires. Just pick one of the two. From experience I did not notice any difference. Also remember that you will loose AM radio as it seems to require both antenna wires and you will be using one of the two.
I hope this helps. :beer:

Gregoire

William-
When i performed this procedure a few months back, i was unable to connect to the wires underneath the drivers side carpet. What i ended up doing, and what seems to be the easiest route, is connecting to the system underneath the rear deck. This panel is very easy to pull off to access the module you need to connect to. This required only 2 cables, the Metra EU10 and EU20.

On my 2004.5, once you have the back deck cover off, there is a very large module which has a fiber optic lead (double wire) and power connection on the passenger side, and an antenna lead (again, double wire) connecting to the driver's side. I simply unclipped the antenna lead on the drivers side, and attached the first Metra cable there to the REARMOST of the 2 available terminals, cant remember if it was the female or male at this point (i tried the rearmost and frontmost terminal, and the rear connection seemed to sound best.) From there connect the standard antenna lead end of this cable into your FM modulator input. Then the output from the modulator into the female antenna lead of the next Metra cable, and the Metra end into the corresponding end of the original cable. Note that i had to break off the plastic housings on BOTH metra cables to expose the bare connections to alow them to fit into the volvo housings, they use the same connections, but different housings, as these metra cables are designed for VW, and BMW's. They still connected snugly, and i just used electrical tape over top as a precaution; I'm not sure if this would need to be done for the volvo adapters you linked to, but i belive it will, since the connection in question was originally for a double-wire.) I used the metra's because i had been assured that they would work, and a friend had a spare set i got for free. All in all it only took about half an hour or so. Of course i had to run power cables too since i was installing an FM modulator for an ipod, not for sirius, which you say you don't need. All you would have to do then is run the connection under the rear seat and carpet or floor mat to connect to the sirius unit itself.

anyway, thats the setup that ended up working for me, with the least ammount of effort--thanks again to greggoire who originally helped out as well

good luck whichever way you choose to go-
-Mike

To add to what MPO said (and don't take my word for it) but I believe that 2004.5 model had the large module he is talking about as he said under the rear deck unfortunately mine was moved on my 2005 model so you will have to see for yourself and be surprised or not :grin:
In any case if you want to connect your module to the back you will have to remove the rear deck carpet cover anyway which is very easy to remove as MPO said. It will be a good place to start.

Good luck and let us know
Greg

Thanks Mike and Greg.

Your quick response was helpful and GREATLY appreciated!

Cheers to you both! :clap: