Left front speaker not working

[rasouth]

Hey guys... I have a 96 Explorer that for quite some time the left front speaker has not worked. I have taken the door apart and tried other speakers with no luck. At one point I had an after market radio/cd player and just spliced the speaker wires to new unit and all speakers worked fine.
I recently purchased a beat up '96 for parts. The radio worked fine and all four speakers worked so I tried a swap of the radios and still no left front speaker. I tried a different speaker connected to the two wires that I believe are the left front neg and pos coming from the back of the radio and still no sound, maybe a little static coming from other speakers.
All of the wiring diagrams I have seen for a '96 Explorer radio are not color coded as the ones in mine. I do not have an orange with light green stripe or a blue with white stripe that are for the left front speaker. Mine are white with orange strip and light green. Both of the cars are wired the same.

 

[timtimtimajim]

In between the door and the body of the vehicle there is a rubber channel/tube that has all the wiring for the door in it. It is common over time for the wires in this area to get worn out and broken from the door opening and closing. Have you checked to make sure that there are no broken wires in that tube? That would be my best guess as to why you are not getting sound to that speaker.

 

[rasouth]

As I stated in my post I tried connecting a speaker to the back of the radio itself, bypassing the wires running into the door. I tried different speakers and another unit all together.

 

[timtimtimajim]

It still wouldn't hurt to check inside the rubber tube.

As for the wire colors you mentioned you have, I've never seen those colors anywhere on the radio wiring diagrams. I've only ever seen orange with light green and blue with white or orange with light green and purple. Could you post up a picture of what you're working with? I might be able to better help you if I see what you've got.

 

[Big_Pezzy]

worst comes to worse, run a new wire straight from the radio to the door. Same happened to my passenger door and that's what I did

 

[rasouth]

I thank you for the input but as I have stated several times I have hooked a speaker up directly to the back of the radio where the wires come out. It is not the wires going through the door. I have pulled the unit out of the dash and tested the harness. I have also tried another radio I pulled from another Explorer as to rule out radio malfunction. I have tried several different speakers to rule out speaker malfunction.
If I was able to get a wiring diagram that actually matched my color code I might figure it out but all of the diagrams I have seen do not have the same color of wires

 

[Big_Pezzy]

Pull the door to get to the speaker wires then use a multimeter to do a continuity test for the wires in the door to the ones behind the radio. Jiggle the door around to make sure it doesnt effect results

 

[rasouth]

Not to criticize too much, but doesn't anybody really read the messages? I have stated that IT IS NOT THE WIRES GOING THROUGH THE DOOR! I have tried connecting a speaker directly to the wires coming from the radio. All of the other speakers work fine, just not the front left one. It's not the radio because I have tried a different one with no luck. When I cut the wires to install an after market radio I cut the wires to leave about 3 inches of wire coming out of the harness that plugs into the back of the radio. It was at this point that I tried connecting different speakers.
As to the color coding of the wires I found a diagram for a 1997 Lincoln Towncar that had the exact same wiring diagram. It just confirmed that the two wires I thought were for the left front speaker are correct...White wire with orange stripe is LF- and Light Green wire is LF+.

 

[Scorpion8]

You really just need to break the issue down to pieces. It can only be one of 3 things: the speaker, the wiring, or the head unit. Start with the simplest, the actual speaker. Pull the speaker wires at the speaker in the door and try a test speaker. If it works, it's the speaker. If not, then it's either the wiring or the head unit. Pull the head unit, and test continuity for the wires from the head unit connector to the terminals in the door. Connect back up the speaker, and then with the head unit pulled, use a 9V battery across the speaker wire connectors at the rear of the head unit for a short instance. You should hear scratching or thumping at the speaker. Have you checked to make sure your head unit fader isn't set to FULL RIGHT?

Chances are you're either testing the wrong wires, or the issue is inside the head unit.

Your first post seems to indicate that the speaker works if tested outside of the installed head unit, through the installed wires, but then a replacement head unit didn't solve the issue. My real guess is you have the wrong wires identified.

 

[timtimtimajim]

We do read your messages. But just because you hook up a speaker to the back of the radio and it does not work there, does not rule out bad wiring in the door. The speaker is going to be used in the door, so you need to check the wiring in the door. Also check for any bad wiring in the harness (i.e. loose wire, broken wire) and maybe even try a new harness to see if that fixes your issue.

 

[DjDom]

Did you ever solve this issue?