I'm sure you are right. Two problems... First, I didn't look closely enough at the picture of the radio. On a closer second look there is indeed that "BAND" button which I missed. The only other thought was that in the '03 Aurora shop manual, there is no evidence of this vehicle ever having factory XM radio. Of course this doesn't mean the same NAV unit wasn't used in other vehicles with XM.

Now my curiosity is peaked . I've compared the pin-outs for the two units (NAV vs Bonneville deck). They are extremely close. The Bonneville doesn't have the vehicle speed signal required by the NAV unit and there are two or three other minor differences. This may very well require some additional investigation! If I persue this much further, I'll start a new thread for anyone interested.

you can keep it here, or start your own.....

I am interested

Here is a picture of the Dock-N-Lock terminals I mentioned in previous posts.

That is cool, thanks! Now does that connector that you showed us go into the BACK of the male dock 'n lock connector, or how is that conector used? I know we can't splice into the wiring because of the ribbon connector (whats behind the ribbon connector anyways? There must be wiring back there somewhere...).

In pinballs and other arcade related games..I have found that a steady and careful person can scrape the plastic off a ribbon and solder a small buss wire into a flat or ribbon connector.

That help at all?

Good idea Mr. Bill The other idea I had was to use the back of the radio as a source of tapping. See the back of this Bonneville radio, which has the same dock 'n lock connector....



Above the actual pins are little 'holes' above/below each pin that I think if you stuck a properly sized wire in, then secured the wire to the back of the radio would work pretty well without modifying anything. (edit: ugh, picture is too small to see the little holes).

But the scraping is not a bad idea....

Here'* a photo of a terminal with a wire attached.



It is NOT a ribbon cable is that is attached to the male, vehicle side Dock-N-Lock. They are all individual conductors with these terminals attached, just like you would expect to see with virtually any other part of the vehicle wiring harness.

If you pull your radio, you'll see in the connector in the back of the dash. You'll notice that there aren't gold plated terminals in all 32 of the positions. GM only installs terminals and wiring in the positions required based on the vehicle options.

To remove the Dock-N-Lock from the dash, you'll need to slide the connector upwards and with a little bit of a turn you should be able to work it forward. There won't be a lot of room, but there will be enough. There will be a blue retainer on the back of the Dock-N-Lock. This is a secondary securing device for the conductors. On all the GM connectors (at least in this vintage of vehicle), have a redundant method to ensure the conductors remain secured in place. If you remove this retainer, the other wires won't all come out (unless the connector housing in damaged - which would be very unlikely). This retainer, although sometimes a bit of a hassle to work back into place, should definitely be reinstalled before placing the connector back into the dash.

If you do in fact follow through with this install, the audio cable should be routed through the back of the dash and come through the same hole as all the other wires going to the Dock-N-Lock.

With the terminals crimped on the audio cable (there should be 3 in total), you will insert each of these into the correct location of the connector housing. Once the terminal is in, it will clip into place. IF YOU NEED TO REMOVE THEM AGAIN, there will be a small plastic tab which can be access from the wire side of the connector. It is molded so that it clips into the side of the terminal once the wire is slipped into cavity. Gently pull the plastic tab away from the terminal while gently pulling on the wire. The conductor should come out easily. If you're careful about placing the wires into the correct cavities, this should not be necessary.

If the connector is positioned the way it normally would be when secured into the dash, the following positions are what you're interested in.

"B" terminals are on the top, "A" terminals are on the underside. Position 16 is closest to the driver’* side, while position 1 is closest to the passenger side.

A9 - Is the Audio COMMON conductor.
A10 - is the LEFT Audio Signal (+).
A11 - is the RIGHT Audio Signal (+).

So, all the terminals will be inserted into the underside of the connector housing starting at the 9th position from the RIGHT if you're looking at it head on.

There is also a BARE conductor in the audio wiring harness (referred to as the drain wire). This is NOT connected at the radio end of the harness and is just cut off flush with the cables outer sheath.

Hope this helps.

The easiet way to relate this is to think of an interface card that plugs into a computer motherboard. The Dock-N-Lock connector wedges into the back of the radio between the upper and lower row of contact that you see.

This is what the vehicle side, male connector looks like



This is a close-up of the back of the radio



The connector on the radio is the equivalent of the edge connector on a computer motherboard, while the vehicle side Dock-N-Lock is the equivalent of an interface card.

Sorry for the pics above. I don't seem to be able to post images that are any larger :(

try photobucket... but your pics are still big if you click them