Car Stereo Wiring Problem

[skulkingghost]

Hello ATOT Garage,

I purchased a 99 Ford Escort ZX2 a few years ago, and the original owner before he sold it to me removed a lot of the audio equipment he had plugged in. This is fine with me, I like good audio at home, but in the car I can deal.

Now, the problem is only the rear passenger side speaker works, the rear driver side works, but doesn't have any volume at all, and the front speakers don't make any noise.

He left some of the wiring things in the back of the car, so I was hoping you guys could help identify them, and tell me what I need to purchase (on the cheap) to get the sound working from all the speakers again.

If its easier to jsut take it to circuit city and have them do it, let me know that as well. m pretty handy with electronics and audio installation so I should be able to do it, if you guys help me.

Here is whats in the car:

Don't Know What This Is / Where It Goes To
This Goes To The Amp Right? Whats The Blue Wire For?
I'm Guessing This Is A Convertor For The Amp

 

[nakedfrog]

The blue wire is a big part of the problem, that's what tells the amp to turn on. Should be a matching blue wire on the wiring harness for the stereo.

 

[BlackTigers]

Picture two is an RCA cable that goes from that LOC (picture 3) to an amplifier. The blue wire is the remote turn on for the amplifier, it goes from the amp to a 12v switched source.

Picture 3 is the line output converter. It splices into the front channel, and converts that channel into an RCA output rather than the regular speaker cables. RCA's go from this box to the amp.

The first picture appears to be a distro block of some sort for power cabling.

 

[zoiks]

The first one is a distribution block for the live wire. The other wire in that same picture are probably the ground wire that is stripped from its own distribution block. Get a multimeter and check the continuity.
The second pic has the blue wire which is the 'remote' wire. It will turn your amp on when the head unit turns on.
I've never used the third one. I first thought it was one of those deals that allow you to use the volume control on the steering wheel with your stereo. Its actually some sort of audio converter. Look it up online.

 

[minendo]

All the wiring your pictures show will not affect it at all unless you are using an amp. However, I am assuming that you still have the stock deck and the issue is between the deck and the speakers. Are the speakers all properly wired? Is the fade/balance screwed up?

 

[skulkingghost]

Fade / Balance is ok. I still have the stock deck. Any ideas on how to check the wiring? Remember the rear driver side speaker makes noise but its very soft, it doesn't have the volume range of the other speaker.

 

[skulkingghost]

anybody?

 

[Ksyder]

You should pop the head unit out and check all of the wiring behind the radio. Aftermarket head units usually have a wiring diagram affixed to the top or bottom of the unit. There is probably an adapter harness that is hooked to the o.e. wiring harness.

What is crucial is to make sure that the connections between the radio wiring harness and the adapter harness is correct. Also, obviously make sure that polarity is correct so your speakers are "in phase". If possible check the connectors on the speakers themselves and be sure that they are secure. One thing I've seen happen is that the connector blocks (for example, connecting the adapter wiring harness to the original factory radio wiring adapter) become a problem because while the plastic blocks are pressed together, the wires for each pin can be pushed out and then they aren't making connection. This is because after being plugged and unplugged a few times the metal bends and then when you try to connect the plastic blocks together they will not properly connect together and the large amount of force required to connect them causes one side or the other to be pushed out of the back of the connector and then you've got a bad connection.

This can be a real p.i.t.a. to fix. If this does end up being your problem, you might want to take a straight pointy pick and remove the wires from the block, bend them to where they will be able to mate with the other side, and then put them back together. Also, it makes sense to do one wire at a time so you don't mix up the wires (this would be bad, especially with yellow, red, or black wires).

Who knows if this is your problem or not but its something to be aware of, esp. because its not something obvious. I learned this the hard way when installing systems where the wires were so screwed up and I had to redo the whole thing. If you want to go the extra mile, ditch the factory installed speaker wiring and run some new wire, perhaps some 18 ga. and new speakers to go along with it. This is good because actual speaker wire obviously has a stripe to denote the polarity of the wires and this would reduce the chances of speakers wired improperly with respect to polarity. I don't know for sure, but I think if you speakers are out of phase, they might sound louder or quieter than each other.

I know this is kind of an old thread. Let us know if you got the problem sorted out!

 

[Ksyder]

Fade / Balance is ok. I still have the stock deck. Any ideas on how to check the wiring? Remember the rear driver side speaker makes noise but its very soft, it doesn't have the volume range of the other speaker.

Do the speakers sound good? Are they original? If they are full range paper cone drivers then they are original and are probably junk. This could be why some are louder than the other. Are they blown? Judging by the age of the car and what the previous owner had installed I'd say the speakers and the wiring are both suspect. Judging by the distribution block, he probably had more than 1 amp, and one of the amps likely would have been a dedicated "highs" amp. This would bypass the factory amplifier/stock speaker wiring combo. Maybe this has something to do with the speakers not working right?

Its so hard to say without seeing the whole system so I'm making some assumptions here. It sounds like you might want to redo certain aspects of the system. If you are not planning on running external amps then the rca's, the amp wiring,etc. are pointless and are adding confusion to the wiring setup.

Picture 3 is the line output converter. It splices into the front channel, and converts that channel into an RCA output rather than the regular speaker cables. RCA's go from this box to the amp.

He's running his front speakers into a converter for rca's? That would certainly explain why the speakers themselves are not working

heres a good video that explains the basics of amp installation if you don't already know