1992 Explorer radio fiasco.

[Jessica U]

So I recently bought a 1992 Explorer. The radio installed into it only turned on and didn't produce sound. I have a much nicer and newer stereo that I would like to install, but I have no experience doing this. The stereo that was in there was not the factory stereo, and upon pulling it out, we discovered that the wires are all a big mess. I have succesfully removed the old stereo, but Im left with a lot of wires that I don't know what goes where. Ive looked online a thousand times and I cant find any sites with the appropriate "wire guide" so I can manually splice these. I wonder if anyone could help me figure out why my wires are so crazy and what goes where?

 

[Sams01XplrSprt]

welcome

 

[BrianDye]

you might be better off taking some pics, that would really help...

The stock amp might not be bypassed...

 

[Anime]

Welcome to the site.

It sounds like whoever installed the stereo decided to do a hack job and not use a wiring harness.

If there's no grey or black plastic square things that a few wires go to, then you'll have to either just hard wire the new stereo to the old wires (which I assume is what you want to do), or wire up a new factory harness.

To know what's up with the stereo though, first you need to find out which stereo system you have in the vehicle. Some 91-94 Explorers have a stereo system with an amplifier behind the rear passenger side interior panel. You can look through the hole in the panel the seatbelt goes through with a flashlight, and see if you discover a big silver or black box.

If there's no amp back there, you can just wire up the stereo as just about any other, with the standard wire colors and connections:

Yellow Wire - battery (constant power wire)
Red Wire - ignition (no power with key off, power when key turned to ACC or ON)
Orange Wire - Illumination (power when lights turned on)
Black Wire - Ground

The other wires, either green, purple, white, gray, etc are the speaker wires. The wires with a black stripe are the negative wires.



If you have an amp back there, the only big difference is that you'll need to connect the blue wire (either solid blue or blue with a white stripe) to the amp turn-on wire on the stereo (usually also blue). However, this means that the factory amp is now powering the speakers, and doing it with a signal it gets from the aftermarket stereo amp. Basically, you're sending an already amplified signal to the amplifier. Not good.

What you'd probably want to do if you have an amp is get an adapter to either bypass the factory amp (autozone sells these for $20 or you can get them online for less), or get an adapter to use the aftermarket stereos pre-amp outputs to send a signal to the amp, instead of using the speakers.

Post back here once you've figured out which system your vehicle has and you can get more specific details on your options.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! I've moved your thread into the audio & navigation section. Check WWW.The12Volt.Com for a schematic.

 

[Jessica U]

The Colors..

The wires coming out of my dash are as follows:

Blue w/ red stripe.
Copper (Brownish).
Dark Blue.
Yellow w/ black stripe.
Orange w/ black stripe.
Light blue.
Light green w/ yellow stripe.
White w/ red stripe.
White w/ orange stripe.
Yellow.
Black w/ green stripe.
White w/ purple stripe.
Black.
Green.
Light blue w/ black stripe.

I did not see an amp. I can get power to the radio now, I think I just need help identifying speaker wires.


Also, during the process of trying to figure out what wire goes where, we seem to have disconnected the dash lights.

Any help?

 

[617ricky]

I did not see an amp. I can get power to the radio now, I think I just need help identifying speaker wires.

The amp would be in the cargo area in the back, under 1 of the panels on the side... I recently put a new deck in my 97, and at 1st the speakers wouldn't work, but the deck powered up.. I found out about the stock amp, and although you can wire it up to work (as long as you have the 2 wires for it on your harness), it's not ideal to run it with a new deck... It's not that hard to bypass it - the cable is like $10... It's just a pain cuz you gotta get that panel off in the back.. There's another way to do it too, where you don't have to actually get to the amp.. But for starters, you gotta find out if you have 1...

I was gonna say go on crutchfield and enter your specs, but you don't kno what kind of stock deck was in there to begin with... Hmmm

 

[Jessica U]

Im so LOST.

Ok so I continued looking for an amp, and Im still coming up short. If it makes a difference, there was obviously a seperate amp wired into the car and then removed. The wires are still there for that and they end up under my backseat. And Ive found a list of wiring that almost matches what is in my car, for a '94, with only one wire difference. I tried wiring it in anyway using this:

+12v = lt. green/yellow
ignition = yellow/black
ground = black
amp turn on = dk. blue
illumination = orange/black
dimmer = lt. blue/red
LF Speaker (+) WHITE/RED
LF Speaker (-) BROWN
RF Speaker (+) WHITE/ORANGE
RF Speaker (-) LIGHT GREEN
LR Speaker (+) PINK/WHITE
LR Speaker (-) LIGHT BLUE
RR Speaker (+) LIGHT BLUE/BLACK
RR Speaker (-) YELLOW

I dont have the pink and white, but I thought it would be close enough.
Still no sound.
Seems to be no problem at all with the power though..

Is it imperative to connect the factory amp, if it is there?

 

[617ricky]

Hmmm, well if there was wiring for a new amp under the seat, you would think that the previous owner already took care of the stock amp, by either bypassing or disconnecting it.. With the stock amp there's 2 wires for it - there's an amp turn on wire, and an amp ground wire.. That's how it is in a 97 at least.. And with the right harness, those wires are on there..

What are you trying to do right now - just hook up the wires straight to your new deck w/ no harness?

 

[Jessica U]

*Sigh*

So I don't want to be the stupid girl, but could someone explain to me exactly where to look for my factory amp?

I looked through the seatbelt hole.. I have not removed any panels to check, but I will if someone could sort of guide me. I dont want to mess anything up worse or embark on a huge dismembering project if its a simple thing.. I am slightly confused about what panel exactly in the back.

The panel in the very back left is my windsheild washing fluid and a black box with a white button.

The other panel is not a pop off panel, but like I said I looked through the hole where the seatbelt is..

I do see something in there, but from what I can see it does not look like a black or silver box.

More like white plastic and some tubing maybe. I cant see it very clearly.

Anyway, Im more than willing to get down and dirty to fix this sound problem, if someone could be specific.

Like, Explorer fixing for Dummies.

 

[617ricky]

If it's in the same spot as a 97, it's underneath the rear passenger quarter-panel - which is the really big piece with the wheel well.. Taking it off isn't that fun either.. To check, you'd just have to take it off halfway and kinda pry it off so you can see in there.. The way I got it off was with the claw of a regular hammer.. Look for those plastic circles, and get the claw in between the panel and the glass, and pry it.. You'll hear/feel it "pop", and just go around to them and keep popping.. Once you have a few off, you can basically pull on it with your hands, and then you can peek in there - you'll see the amp if it's in there..

 

[Anime]

Some 91-94 Explorers have a stereo system with an amplifier behind the rear passenger side interior panel. You can look through the hole in the panel the seatbelt goes through with a flashlight, and see if you discover a big silver or black box.

If there's an amp back there, and the speakers are wired to the amp, but the amp power wire isn't connected, you won't get any sound.

The wires might be messed up if another amp was added back there. You might want to remove all the extra wiring behind the back seat. If they go behind the side panel, then it's likely they somehow connect to the system.

If you're lucky, the factory wires are still intact, and the factory amp just isn't turning on, or was disconnected, which would explain why you aren't getting any sound.