replacing factory radio?

[savedsol]

okay gosh darn it! i have a '94 Explorer with premium sound.
i been pondering and pondering what happened to my sounds after i installed a '97 alphine head unit!
the problem is i'm not getting any sounds out from the speakers at all!
not even static! i'm using a Metra harness that fits the two connections of the factory wiring (harness for premium sound package)! Dead Link Removed
the Alphine head unit does turn on and keeps memory and everything except no sounds from speakerS!
i installed back factory radio and there IS sound!


the way i have my connections for the Alphine harness are:

Pin 1: Dark Blue (have it open because i have no appropiate wire for it to connect to on Alphine harness)
Pin 2: Open
Pin 3: Blk/Grn (have radio ground connected to this)
Pin 4: Open
Pin 5: Open (have it open because i have no appropiate wire for it to connect to on Alphine harness)
Pin 6: Yel/Blk (have ignition power wire on it)
Pin 7: Blk (have it open because alphine only have 1 ground wire on its harness)
Pin 8: Grn/Yel (have memory power connected to this)

and the other terminal socket for the speakers are simple and i know i have them correctly connected)

have i forgetten a step or something??
thanks for any help!!

 

[jimbo74]

you need to have the remote turn on for the factory amp.... or a factory amp bypass harness...... this happened to me the first time i tried to put in an aftermarket hu on my premium sound equipt 94 xlt.....

 

[savedsol]

jimabena,

what do you mean??? don't i have the correct harness (look at pic url i have on post)??

 

[jimbo74]

yes, that is it
one of those blue ones is an amp turn on wire....;. your alpine has one that may not be blue but is an amp turn on wire.... they need to be connected.... if the stock amp isnt getting its power, it wont play anything

 

[savedsol]

On my Alphine harness a Blue/White harness is called "Remote Turn-On Lead", could that be it??
i didn't bother with that cause i thought it had something to do other than Amp Turn On Lead.
dang it makes sense now, keywords "Turn On Lead" hahaha

i'll try that now even if its 1:56am and freezing outside haha

thanks jim! i'm grateful for ur fast replies!

 

[jimbo74]

yup... that needs to be connected..... from what you described... THAT IS THE ANSWER TO YOUR PROBLEM.... your truck has a factory amp.... the only way to get it to function properly is to supply it power or to bypass it with a bypass harness.... if you want to run the bypass harness, they cost $15 from www.crutchfield.com

 

[savedsol]

JIm,

it work! thanks!

problem now is i have cracking sound coming from rear left speaker!
maybe my grounding or the way it is right now and how i have it open and me handling head unit on my hands.

 

[jimbo74]

make sure you get good connections and everything... if had to pull everything apart for that reason.....

 

[savedsol]

i been using butt connectors!
help thanks again haha

 

[jimbo74]

personally, i would solder and heatshrink it for reliability, but butt cons can be ok if you do it right with the propper tools and what not

 

[savedsol]

yeah i use a crimp tool

 

[MrExplorer]

I had the crackling problem when using the factory amp with an aftermarket HU. They dont play well together. Best to just get the amp eliminator plug (circuit city or crutchfield) and get it out of the system. You will be happy you did! The amp is located behind the passenger side cargo area panel. I was able to acess it by just removing the small recessed cargo holder at the pass side rear of the X. You have a 94 so im not sure if you have that recessed holder to take out. If you take the whole panel off youll need a T-50 socket.

Good luck!

 

[savedsol]

oh man yeah i'm getting that crackling sound whenever i have the engine fully on!

the thing with the Amp is i have a very hard time reaching the connectors that is hidden up more..
do i only need the 2 connectors on the left side??
the small one and a big one??

 

[MrExplorer]

If you have a square plug and a rectangle plug on your amp they may not make a plug and play amp eliminator plug. I called crutchfield and went to curcuit city and they did not have a eliminator. Crutchfield did have the plug that went into the plug comming out of the amp and he stated that i needed to run wires all the way to the hu. The adaptor that curcuit city had came with 2 flat type connectors. My amp had a flat one and a square one. I scanned the diagram of what wires needed to be joined together. Im not sure if they would be the same as my 97 but you can compare wire colors.

 

[MrExplorer]

opps here's the link to the pic

http://206.183.9.134/amp.bmp

 

[savedsol]

hey i might know why people have all kinds of problem with their speakers and sounds etc.. after installing aftermarket HU on explorer premium sounds.
the problem i found was with the adapter plug that u connect to the speaker female plug. they do not completely connect with each other! i notice it would connect only maybe 1/3 of way and gets block because of the way the pins are aligned on the male plug...
what i did was clip off the side walls of the male plug to correctly fit them both together by making room to "wiggle" them both to connect. hopes this helps others with problems with aftermarket HU.

 

[dangermon]

this might work for me... I am having that connection problem with the metra and ford square (spkr) harness not fitting properly and flush.

man. I have to cut the ford plastic on the harness...? plus the ford harness has a metal piece on one side of the harness...