91-94 factory stereo wiring

[Tbars4]

...i hope this might help the others who have a first gen X and someone had cut the stock stereo wiring harness's on their trucks as they did mine...
...on my 91 Project X, the wires were some what different than found on this link, but i suggest you look here also...
http://www.the12volt.com/installbay/stereodetail/855.html


...These are the factory wire colors on my X......mine is one of the first X's made (01/91), so yours might be different so as always, follow this at your own risk...


Power wires :

ground = blk
12v ignition= yellow/blk stripe
12v constant= green/yellow stripe
dash dimmer= blue/red stripe
and the blue goes to power the factory amp...
red = unknown
yellow=unknown


Speaker wires found in grey wire harness:

left frt = 1)green and 2)white w/orange stripe
rt frt= 1)white w/red stripe and 2)orange
rt rear = 1)violet w/white stripe and 2)lite blue
lft rear= 1)lite blue w/dk blue stripe and 2)yellow

 

[SuRrEaLNJ]

ooh, definately hangin on to this bit of information for when i re-tackle that problem... tried fixin it once, and i still have no sound

 

[FordExploder94]

im still afraid to cut my plug in fear that i still wont get sound, also i think some one on here posted there was an aluminum stranded wire for the ground? is this the same for every explorer or did he just have a werid one?

 

[Tbars4]

...Previous Ford's I have owned were the same way....They usually had a screw or nut and bolt attached to a ground strap or wire...

...:scratch:...I'm not sure why you want to cut your harness on your radio though...A little more information from you, and we might be able to help...

 

[FordExploder94]

well i want to cut the plug that has all the speaker wires up near the head unit, because i have a bypass harness to by pass the amp, i have a harness for the power/ground wires but not for the speaker wires, i was just gunna hand splice them i have a 1994 ford explorer 4.0 OHC 4x4 4 door.

 

[Tbars4]

....They grey, cable looking thing has all the speaker wires in it...

...If I were you, I would run my own speaker wires and leave that cable alone in case you sell the truck and return it to stock system...The speaker wires are small and won't do anything good for your sound system...

...New speaker wires will also let you test your system and find your possible no sound problem...

 

[FordExploder94]

how long of a project is that do you think>? i am an electrician and i have run speaker wire before but it was a hack job. is there any way to take the doors out and **** with basic hand tools, i dont want to #### up the truck, but i dont really care about cutting the grey wire i just want to know the colors i need to splice to the ones on the new radio harness

 

[Tbars4]

...Again, all the info on colors of wires can be found in post #1 of this thread...

...It would take a couple hours...:scratch:...But, from what you just stated, I would reserve 1-2 days to allow for completion...

...The door panels pull off after removing three or 4 screws, and the panels will still be held on by plastic clips...

...I do highly suggest that you go to your auto parts store and pick up a Haynes or Chilton's manual...They are about $20 bucks and can answer most of your questions to all your projects, your stereo and door panels, and projects in your other threads too...

 

[FordExploder94]

thanks for the help

 

[FordExploder94]

thats on a 91 tho right, do the colors change on the later models?

 

[FordExploder94]

every thing worked great! i hand spliced the wires and its pumpin good, the stock speakers sound really good too!

 

[Tbars4]

...Congrats on completing one, of many projects to come...:biggthump

 

[FordExploder94]

thanks for your help man, i really want to put some work into the truck but it needs alot!

 

[Tbars4]

....I see you finally started your own thread about your truck...:biggthump

...Could you do me a favor???...Since your last post here is so way off topic for others who come to this thread looking for stereo wiring info, could you delete all but your first sentence???...Thanks

 

[brokenknee]

Signal Wire Polarity

92' EB 4x4 JBL Premium system.

Bravo on the wire color guide. Thank you! Looks like I may have spliced in my RCA leads backwards. I keep grounding out my aftermarket amp when I plug them in.
Do you know the proper polarity (+/-) of the wires mentioned above, and should I be fine using a standard coaxial RCA cable for the signal splice? I'm splicing into the wires coming out of the grey shielded cable, just before it goes into the factory amp. Thanks!

-brokenknee

 

[kyleq805]

a real easy way to do the speakers is to run an aftermarket 4 channel amp cut the wires off of the stock speakers. run your own wires from the speakers directly to the amp. run the power and ground for the amp. then find the remote wire, usually blue on a pioneer. adjust the levels on the amp and the head unit and you can get good sound out of stock speakers. if you want some good speakers for cheap look into the pheonix golds 5X7

 

[brokenknee]

I am planning on getting a new deck, but for now I want to preserve the factory system. I'm going try and find out the polarity of the signal wires today and post them here.

Confirmed: The BLUE power wire off the deck works as the remote line.

-brokenknee

92' Explorer 4.0L 4x4
Eddie Bauer, JBL

 

[nitro71]

If you have the grey wire and the cheesy(kinda week looking) plug do you have a amp or is that just a bundle of speaker wires? 93 Explorer Sport.

 

[brokenknee]

After 8 more hours of fun and 4 re-splices, I got my system to work.

Even with the correct polarity (+/- direction), my amp shut down as soon as I connected the wire that I spliced into the Grey Shielded Signal wires.

DMM shows 5.2 mV on the Pre-amp signal. My mp3 player worked on the amp, and it only pushes 2.0 mV... So I was confused.

After another failed attempt at using the spliced preamp, I decided to try using the "HIGH LEVEL input on my amp. So I wired in some new leads and plugged it into the amp. No short this time, but there wasn't enough signal for the amp to amplify. I assume the JBL 4 channel factory amp has built in HPF and LPF, which is why I couldn't get a clean signal even from the Speaker power wires.

Fourth time I spliced into the wires going directly to the factory 6.5" subwoofer, and BAM! Now I'm bumpin!

"Why didn't you split the subwoofer output the first time?" Someone might ask. Well, I figured the factory amps used crossovers before I started this project (and I was right.) I assumed they would filter the highs and the sub-sonics going to the 6.5" woofer, since It's too small to push < 40Hz effectively. I wanted to run a full-range signal to the amp so I didn't lose anything on the low-low end (which was my reason for starting all this.)

Well, regardless of whether anything is clipped from my subs range, atleast it freaking works now. What a PAIN! I'll post some pictures when I get everything cleaned up.

-brokenknee

 

[nitro71]

Broken, I'm getting ready to do a install today. Basic head unit. Pretty sure I have a factory amp, no sub. My plan is to run new speaker wire to the speakers and let the head unit run everything. You mentioned bypassing the sub, how does that work?