Dodge Repair: AM/FM/cassette to AM/FM/CD

Question
Hi Roland-

I have a 2001 Dakota club cab, 4.7/Auto 4X4 with a factory AM/FM/cassette.

Neighbor has a wrecked 1998-2004 Chrysler Concorde (he thinks it is a 1998 but would have to dig the title out) that his brother-in-law was going to fix up. 3 years have passed with no work on it so he told his B-I-L he was going to junk it and the B-I-L agreed. It has a AM/FM/CD player and he would let me have it if I removed it before he hauls the car away.

I would like to upgrade my pick-up to this, is it a direct plug-in? Would I need to worry that my body control module (BCM) or something else would not recognize it a nothing would work?

Thanks,
Jim

Answer
Hi Jim,
While the radios are of a similar vintage so many of the wiring concepts are similar, the individual wire assignments to the plugs are different so that it would not be a direct plug-in but rather involve changing the wire connections to either the existing plugs in the truck radio or the plugs in the car radio (although it appears that the plugs are similar and may fit in the sockets, the wires are not arranged identically). So you would want to have both year wiring diagrams and plot out how you would re-arrange them, then cut and splice.
I have the '01 Ram manual on a CD and could copy those and attach them to a email I would send to you directly, while the '98 Concorde diagrams would he copied from my paper manual and postal mailed to you.
So think about whether you want to do the project and let me know if you do.
Roland