[MatthewL]

Hi there. After several years of twiddling the tone knob in vain on my R760 to get better sound out of my decent-ish aftermarket Alpine speakers I’ve decided to invest. I’ve bought a Philips R960 which looks identical, has separate bass and treble setting, and doesn’t have half the buttons glued in like on my radio. These R960s I believe have input for remote steering wheel controls.

I have seen that some Rover R3s have an identical looking steering wheel with remote volume control. Does anyone know if there is a standard loom you can fit to an R8 to get these to work? The wheel has horns so is there something you’d need to change on the steering column to have these radio signals leave the wheel. Is there a special loom from the steering column? Lots of questions!

[Dorchester]

Several years ago in 2016 I found on Ebay a steering wheel with its remote device plus harness for my 'modern' Pioneer Bluetooth USB radio in my 2002 25.
I've even noted the ref: PC99X32 in case it might be useful.
I've partially succeeded with only the volume up and down. I'm happy with that.
This old thread could help you: https://www.mg-rover.org/threads/stalk-adapters.279715/

[MatthewL]

That’s great to hear. Volume is all I’m after. I have a Bluetooth transmitter which the radio will be tuned into. As the car is less quiet than a modern one I find myself adjusting the volume all the time.

I’ve just bought a £20 steering wheel from a Rover 25 to look at the steering wheel controls - I may need an older control which pairs with the older radio but I can then see if I can adapt my steering wheel to fit the controls at least. I’ll need a different “clock spring” on the steering column which covers horn and radio controls. I’ll see what’s possible but I’m not even sure which pins on the radio I’d need to wire into yet.

Thanks for the link - I’ll have a good read

[CoupeFan]

I can only speak as a Tomcat owner, but the steering wheel mounted volume and station/track up/down button only appeared in Tomcats with the Series 2 cars and their R3 style "bubble" dash in 1996. That's when the standard radio changed to the Philips made Rover branded R860 instead of the R750 and before that the R652 used in the Series 1 cars, both of which could be factory upgraded to the R950 with CD changer controls. The 652, 750 and 950 all had an integral display of station etc.

The R860, which has CD changer controls, does not have an integral display and instead uses the clock to show the mode AM/FM/Tape/CD and channel or track. It also has separate Bass and Treble controls. The radio was downgraded sometime in 1998 to the R770.

So be careful when swapping out the radio if you want to avoid having to change the clock as well.

[CoupeFan]

Having reread your posts again today, and further to my post above, I'm reasonably certain that your radio model numbers are a bit out. You say that your current radio is an R760 but imply that it only has a Tone control, not separate Bass and Treble.

That can't be right as the R760 has both Bass and Treble. So your current radio is probably an R750 not an R760, especially if you say that the R960 looks the same. I can't find a reference to the R960, only to the R950 which does look the same as the R750. So if you actually have an R750 then you probably have bought an R950 and I don't think that you can have steering wheel/column mounted volume & track controls on the R950.

Unfortunately the Rover sales brochures say that the R950 has both Tone and Bass & Treble controls, which I suspect is wrong as the sales brochure shows the R950 as having Bass and Treble controls, not Tone. The brochure doesn't mention the remote volume and channel/track up/down buttons on the 950, but that omission might be another typo/proofing error.

Also the presence of the two horn buttons isn't a sign that the steering wheel remote was fitted. The change from the centre horn push to the two buttons was driven by the introduction of the Driver's airbag sometime in 1994 I think it was, not the change from the x50 series radios to the x60 series in 1996.

Replacing the 750 with the 950 looks straightforward, so you will get the separate Bass & Treble controls, but I don't think you'll get the steering column volume & channel/track controls as well.

That's how it looks from a Tomcat perspective, and I'd have thought that Cabbies would have followed suit. But I don't know how well these changes fit with the changes to the 3 & 5 door R8s.

But, please, everyone, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.