CD43 Business CD Head Unit Installation....

[George M]

Chris,
Contact Circle BMW..they have a website to purchase the shaft and knob separately if you want to replace the T-handle. When I did the conversion a couple of years ago, I purchased a complete late model E-36 shifter assembly and then using an arbor press, pressed the respective wrist pins out of each base and swapped the E-36 shaft into the E-32 base. The two bases are different in terms of the direction of the cable feed. The archives on this board may contain the actual part numbers but Circle BMW should be able to hook you up. Believe Bavarian Autosport has a large selection of different late model pistol grips...check out their on-line catalog. I toyed with the idea of having a composite leather and aluminum pistol grip but went with an all leather grip because my car interior has virtually no aluminum...just the top strips along the door panels.
HTH,
George

[henryw525i]

Very intresting reading your article, because I thought I would be the only person installing another OEM BMW headunit and not going towards the aftermarket way. I am pretty sure the CD 43 was a different internals to the radio I installed, but they have the same connections and asthetic design. I chose to install another OEM bmw radio because there were no HU out there that fitted the rest of the car like that radio.

The radio I pulled out was a really old bugger was the poverty radio that came with E30's E28's and E34's had a tape drive lcd screen and no cd changer options....and the thing had only 2 channels left and right which was then split by the fader control switch.

So got the radio out of my mates '99 M3 and got the code from the stealer. But the speakers in my car were pretty stuffed and they were 8ohm and the HU is designed to work with 4ohm speakers so I replaced all the speakers with some phillips 80w ones. I am not a person for cutting and splicing wires....I HATE IT so i was searching throgh the ETK one day and came upon an OEM adaptor that was a plug and play to convert the old plug system to the new "rectangular" plug system. So yeah it was fairly bolt in...except the harness i got was designed for the wireharness that had the HU that had fader control on it rather than having a fader switch. I tapped them in so the fader control switch still worked because its easier to use that going through the menu on the radio.

So yeah everything plugged in fine. then i bought a stacker and got an E36 stacker harness and wired and bolted it all up per factory design...

And yeah it does me quite nicely. Having your HU would have been really cool...but i sometimes plug my laptop in via the tape deck so yeah that has its advantages also.


Great work though I like your thinking

[George M]

great to see old fashioned ingenuity...pretty clever on your part to search the ETK for a compatible plug and swap out speakers. I am sure that model year '99 M3 radio is strong. As mentioned before some have gone to the dark side and installed some really high tech systems and there appears to be every flavor in between...which one would expect. A-Z...guys content with the stock radio and audiophiles on this board which will only accept super high end sound.
Well done Henry,
George

[OneBeLow]

back from the dead.....anyone done this since 2004?

[BuckNaked]

Not yet, but I am actively seeking out a CD43 for my 95 540i.
This post is so old that the pictures have dried up.
I am going to do some more research on the actual process which should be the same for both our vehicles. The original author speaks of pre-91 having different pinouts... let me know if you fins anything, I will do the same.

[Boone.Msi]

check bimmerforums.com's for sale section, they have them in there all the time ranging from $200-$450.

[BuckNaked]

funny, I bookmarked bimmerforums.com's for sale section as my start page.
I see 2 versions for sale on eBait. One I am assuming is a knock off with the ///M stick-on logo and runs $300. The other uses the BMW Business CD silkscreened and seldom sells for less than $375 shipped. Anyone else notice this?
I was hoping the CD43 was a direct swap, but I guess not.

[Hector]

This is a high quality thread and probably one of the very few in its class. As soon as I get the time and parts I'm going straight to work. I just hope that I have the drive and enthusiasm George had at the time. Man, I'm getting pumped up already.

[Paul in NZ]

George mentions the pinout is shown on the new headunit.If the old headunit is also marked then hopefully it will be relatively painless.

[Qsilver7]

If you have a 91 or higher e34/e32 etc...the CD43's wiring harness hooks right up to your car's regular radio connector.

The only thing that won't work is the CD changer cable...the CD43 communicates with the CD changer (CDC) over the I-Bus...and the e34/e32 communicates with the CDC over the M-bus. In order to use a CDC with the CD43 head unit...you need to update the data cable that runs from the head unit to your CDC location...and you must upgrade your CDC to one that operates on the I-Bus. It's sort of easy to tell because those changers will usually have "BMW 6 CD changer PI" written on the door.

Or you can upgrade from outdated CDs and move up to an MP3 player. The CD43 will work with an iPod or MP3 player by connecting to the aux outlet in the back. You can run the MP3 player to your glove box, trunk, or mount a holder anywhere convenient for you.

For info and links to info about upgrading using this radio click this link: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/433594/17

As far as the redundant radio display in the instrument cluster display...you have to have a 1993 or higher e34.