Sub wiring

revyman · October 27, 2014

Hi everyone. I am new to this site and have no idea of how to navigate within the site so please be patient with me. What i am looking for is someone that can help me with the wiring on an amp and sub i want to add to my current vehicle. The unit is a 6" sub and pair of amps from a 1991 explorer. The amps and sub are mounted on one unit ( Bakelite type material ) and has this number on one of the amps. ( F17F-18C807-CA ) . What i need is information that will let me know what wires i need to use to hook it up to my current stereo. There is one RCA plug from my stereo labeled sub and i assume it is the only one i need to hook up to the ford amps. Besides needing the wiring diagram, could you please answer the question of should i use both amps or am i better off just using the sub amp.Might using both amps give me a little more punch or would the sub amp be just fine. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and i sure hope one of you can help. Thanks

Rick · October 28, 2014

I moved your thread into our Audio and Navigation subforum:
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9

Welcome to the site :chug:

1996BLKBauer · October 28, 2014

revyman said:
Hi everyone. I am new to this site and have no idea of how to navigate within the site so please be patient with me. What i am looking for is someone that can help me with the wiring on an amp and sub i want to add to my current vehicle. The unit is a 6" sub and pair of amps from a 1991 explorer. The amps and sub are mounted on one unit ( Bakelite type material ) and has this number on one of the amps. ( F17F-18C807-CA ) . What i need is information that will let me know what wires i need to use to hook it up to my current stereo. There is one RCA plug from my stereo labeled sub and i assume it is the only one i need to hook up to the ford amps. Besides needing the wiring diagram, could you please answer the question of should i use both amps or am i better off just using the sub amp.Might using both amps give me a little more punch or would the sub amp be just fine. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and i sure hope one of you can help. Thanks

Welcome to the forum, The Amp for it seems to fail on most Explorers, to be honest I would suggest going after market with it all. You have the premium sound system, most likely JBL, Metro makes a wire kit that allows you to plug into the stock harness, both in the rear by the amps, and the front, so that you can have an aftermarket radio. I tried for quite a long time to make the stock stereo sub work, but to no avail. There are tones of threads on here of mods so you can use the stock locations and stock box for the sub, but with aftermarket amp, and sub woofer. Not sure if that helps you, but feel free to ask. hopefully this helps. good luck, there are a lot of ideas on here for you.

revyman · October 29, 2014

I went to my local ford dealer and found some help. They gave me a wiring diagram that showed the red and yellow wires from the sub amp as being ( Red as ground ) and ( Yellow as the power ) That seems weird to me but he assured me it was correct. Two black wires from the sub amp go directly to the sub speaker so that one is eliminated from the mix. The only connection left on the sub amp is a shielded three wire cable from the sub amp to the speaker amp. The three wires are, one with black coating, one with a clear coating and one is simply a braided wire with no coating. This has to be the input to the sub as it is the last remaining input to the sub, so all i need now is to find out which wire is positive input, which is negative input, and to find out what the third wire is for. If i can find this out i should be good as i know the amp works. Thanks for the speedy reply guys. Sounds like there is a treasure trove of information here.

toypaseo · October 29, 2014

Great detective work :thumbsup:

My 2¢...

Junk the two OEM amps. Carve out OEM enclosure to accept an 8" sub. Add aftermarket amp.

Click on image for larger view.

revyman · October 29, 2014

If i just make the enclosure fit an 8" sub will the air in the enclosure be wrong for that size of speaker? I would still like to try the 6" sub just for ****ts and giggles so i still need that last wire hook up

toypaseo · October 29, 2014

Enclosure being too small, or too big, will depend on the speaker specs.

For me, the OEM enclosure specs were within the Kicker Solobaric requirements.

1996BLKBauer · October 29, 2014

JL makes a sweet shallow mount 8inch sub that only needs about a cubic food of space to pound. I am sure there is more then 1 cubic foot behind the panel there, I think the 97 and a half Explorers and up had 8inch subs stock, so you could goto a junk yard and grab one of those.

DjDom · October 29, 2014

I've got an 8 inch box sitting around, I wonder how much it would be to ship to you.
I could probably shrink wrap it and just stick a label on it.

Sub wiring

revyman

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Rick

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1996BLKBauer

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revyman

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toypaseo

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revyman

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