'95 JBL system aftermarket install question

[jtm087]

Here is my situation, I have a 1995 4door explorer XLT wwith JBL sub and amp in rear panel, no antenna wire in factory head unit.
I have read through all the posts about the 1995 JBL system and have come to the conclusion that i may need Metra Harness 70-5601.
Here is my issue I have already dropped $35 on Metra Harness 70-5603 b/c thats what i thought I needed, I cannot return it because I have stripped some of the wires already.
Here is what I am trying to do >>>>

THis is the harness i have now Metra 70-5603. The power harness (wide gray one) works fine, i have hooked my radio up and tested it. Now the Audio harness has 4 RCA's at the end that connect to a set of 8 wires (purple/blk, green/blk, gray/blk, white/blk) and then a ground wire.

This is the factory harness that connected into my factory radio, The green harness from the metra kit looks like it fits it but it doesnt and the pins are in different places. Their are 8 wires connected to this (blue/pink, black, brown, green/blk, white/pink, brown/green, blue/white, gray)

My question is, if I find out what the 8 wires in the factory harness are to can I wire the metra harness wires into those and have my speaker, sub, and amp work properly? I am not so concerned with the antenna as I do not listen the am/fm radio to often.

Other question, with metra kit 70-5601, what all has to be done as far as running wires?(other than antenna) b/c looking at the picture of the kit it looks like a big bundle of wire is included. Also does the harness for sound in this kit fit exaclty with the factory harness without further splicing?

Thanks for any help given

 

[BrianDye]

I cant help you with what wires are what, but I have the same setup, and I thought it would be HELL to go aftermarket, but I had todo it, and spent like 22$ shipped on the Metra harness, which you have to plug into the amp in the rear cargo area behind the panel, and simply run the wires up to your headunit, all in all its about a 35-40 minute job, depending on how fast you can pull your rear panel enough to plug it in lol.

I would reccomend just getting that harness, and taking the time todo it the right way, so theres very little margin for error, and you can always return to stock if you ever sell it

Hope that helps! (Ill try and find the link to where I bought my harness)


http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2375084&postcount=142
Theres a picture in my registry of what the harness looks like, it will be LONG, and have an antenna wire in with it, I believe its Metra 70-5601

 

[jtm087]

Yea getting to the amp is no problem, I have already taken the whole sub/amp enslosure out to replace my factory 6" sub with a JL 8", but id rather keep the work all in the dash if possible, I found the metra 70-5601 for $12 shipped at mycartoys.com and ordered it just in case, but hopefully i can find a way for this to work, btw did the harness you used have RCA's like the one above?

 

[jtm087]

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2375084&postcount=142
Theres a picture in my registry of what the harness looks like, it will be LONG, and have an antenna wire in with it, I believe its Metra 70-5601

Wow so you have to run the speaker wire from the rear panel to??? : / Do you have a shot of what the connector that plugs into the amp looks like? does it replace a connector that is already on the amp?

 

[BrianDye]

Nope, I believe the RCA's are somehow for using the stock sub or amp, but you'll have much better sound bypassing it all with the 70-5601.

Its like this: (quick drawing in Paint LOL)

 

[BrianDye]

Wow so you have to run the speaker wire from the rear panel to??? : / Do you have a shot of what the connector that plugs into the amp looks like? does it replace a connector that is already on the amp?

Yea, but its all tied together, so its not like running wire by wire, its just one big harness. Theres a plug on the amp you unplug and this plugs into that socket, and then you unplug the antenna from the amp, and plug it into the antenna wire on the harness, it sounds bad but its really straightforward, you use the grey wide harness that comes with it also as your power and remote/ground etc

 

[jtm087]

Nope, I believe the RCA's are somehow for using the stock sub or amp, but you'll have much better sound bypassing it all with the 70-5601.

Its like this: (quick drawing in Paint LOL)

So you're saying with this setup, the stock sub is not able to be used?? Thats no good, I replaced my stock sub with a JL, it sounded really good witht the factory radio, I assume it will sound better witht the pioneer

 

[BrianDye]

Hm, im not sure then man, we'll have to wait til someone else chirps in, because I do know there is a way, theres a couple wires you just gotta add RCA's to I believe and use it like a regular amp, hooking them to the sub pre-out on the headunit

 

[ribob]

Install update

Just wondering if you got that radio in yet. I am doing the same thing. I think if you use the big kit all you should have to do is run an rca from the new HU sub out and connect the sub like any other setup. Now if you are running an amp to the main speakers, you should run the speaker wires on the install kit to the speaker ouputs on the amp and connect the HU to the amp with an rca cable. So basically the only wires up front from the new harness would be the power wires because with an amp installed you wouldnt use the speaker wires off the radio anyway. I think this makes sense.

 

[JClaro]

In the same boat

I am an EE and wanted to add an ipod to my 96 explorer limited with JBL Audiophile sound system. I've spent the past 3 days talking with people at crutchfield, best buy, local audio install businesses and this is what I found.

Most people haven't done enough research into our issue.

Go to this site to find the wiring diagram for your vehicle.

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/car-audio/33443-96-ford-explorer-premium-audio-system-advice.html


The last post has the diagram you are looking for, but beware, our systems were created to be a hassle. First I'd like to point out that the radio serves as a remote controller to another processor that manages the entire audio system.

Here is some more info on our system.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25999

The signals from the radio and your back rear audio controller mounted on the rear of your center console communicate to the main processor utilizing the Ford ACP communications protocol. Therefore if you want to make this easy and use the existing system which is what I wanted to do you must have a device that communicates to the main processor.

I was thinking about splicing the "headphone jack to rca cable" and wiring it into the cd signals that go directly to the main processor. However I wonder if when I select CD on the factory radio, and the main processor (REMOTE CHASIS UNIT) receives this command, if it will expect a signal from the PROTOCOL A OR B ports from the 6 CD changer to tell it to get ready to receive the audio.

If that is the case then my idea wont work. I did found a solution to my problem, the sucky thing is I didn't do my due diligence research, because I didn't have the internet before hand and I cut the connector to both the radio and CD harness and now need to find connectors if I want to go that route which is much cheaper. The device can be purchased for $68. Here is the main site.

http://blitzsafe.com/catalog/ford/ford-/-m-link1-v-1b/prod_164.html

Here is where you can get it for cheaper.

http://enfigcarstereo.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/ford_ipod.html

The reason I want to connect my ipod directly to the radio is because I've had 3 of those stupid ipod to tape devices break and most of them don't work for some reason, they flip back and forth to each side and then eject.

I knew I should of done my research first, the limited editions are always created with the smarts and complicated configurations which make it limited when you want to add after market components.

If anyone has hacked their tape or cd signals on this let me know how it worked.


There are to many configurations. I've not read one successfully instance where a user utilized a harness to integrate a new HU into the factory audio JBL system, a shown in the schematic in the first link. If it's not one thing it's another u can use some harnesses to



Some systems are lucky and they have the audio cables in the dash, these users can integrate their HU with the system using this connector.

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_142C4F...howAll=N&search=142c4fdk6&ssi=0&tp=3486&avf=N

or the FAI-3A by SOSCHE.

Their is a system that does not have the speaker wires apparently to the dash but has the radio serves as the tuner, which I believe can be verified by noting if the antenna cable is in the dash and they may use this cable.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260415

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_120705510/Ford-Receiver-Wiring-Harness.html?tp=2977&tab=review

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0009HMQI8...e=asn&creative=380341&creativeASIN=B0009HMQI8

But the reality is for our system the main processor (REMOTE CHASIS UNIT)
located in the rear of the vehicle contains the tuner and is where the antenna is connected to. I may be able to reroute the antenna back to the
dash and get one of the above cables to test it but there is no for sure answer as to when you select tuner on the HU if it's going to send a signal
to the main controller to start listening on it's onboard tuner. By the way I wonder how would the above cables work if the main reason nothing can just plug and play into this system because the ACP protocol used and how in the world are these cables going to integrate a HU that is not providing that signal to the main controller?