'96 Explorer no audio

[Jim_WY]

Hi. I've read a lot of threads on here, and got a lot of ideas to try with this problem, but so far, no go.

I've got a '96 explorer with the "premium" audio package. AM/FM-Cassette head with a CD changer in the center console. A while back, the audio became intermittent and finally died completely.

Not knowing anything about it, and wanting a new head anyhow because I wanted to have MP3 playing and have little use for CDs or cassette these days, I bought a very cheap "Dual" unit from Wally World for about $40 that has no mechanical drives at all, fairly low power, but has AM/FM, and a USB connector as well as an SD card slot and a "line level" input on the front. Just what I wanted and nothing more.

Anyhow, I connected it up, and nothing. So I figure there's a separate power amp somewhere in the car that's the real culprit. That got me searching on here, and I've read a lot.

So far, I've tried connecting the wire from the new head that puts switched +12 out to run a power antenna or turn on an external amp to the "blue" and even the "blue white" wires in the car's harness to see if that would power up the (presumed) external amp. Nothing.

I tried putting the original head back in and pressing the 3 and 5 buttons at the same time in case the switch in the headphone jack at the rear of the console is dirty, making it THINK that a pair of headphones is plugged in, and still nothing.

So the power amp is obviously not running, and I can't get it to turn on.

Perhaps a fuse has blown that feeds just the PA, but I doubt that because you can occasionally get a little bit of a pop out of it.

I did see one post in a thread that said something to the effect that the PA was "smart" and somehow measures the applied load on each channel and if one of the speakers (or the wiring to it) appears to be presenting too low of an impedance, it'll shut the whole amp down.

So my thinking now is that perhaps one of the speakers (or its wiring) is shorted, causing the PA to protect itself and shut down.

But I'm not sure if the PA in this system will be behind the dreaded right rear panel OR if it might be in the center console.

Before I start ripping the vehicle apart to find out what's were, does anyone have any sage advice about where I could easily get to, where I could actually ohm-out the four speakers and/or get at the amp?

Once I get it going, I will then have to choose between putting the original head in or putting in the new, cheesy (but MP3 compatible) one I bought.

But before I can have any sounds, I've got to get to the bottom of what's killing the amp.

This is my first post to this forum. So far, I've found a LOT of good ideas. Thanks, everyone!

 

[617ricky]

I didn't have time to read the whole thread, but you have a stock amp, and if you don't bypass it - here's what you gotta do... Connect the blue/white 12v amp wire to the power antenna wire on the stereo side... Then you gotta get the amp ground wire on the square part of the harness, and twist that right into the stereo ground, so it will be 3 wires twisted tightly together.. That's how I did it anyways.. This allows you to use the stock amp AND deck, but it's not ideal cuz of the excess power.. It's definitely not that bad tho if you're careful with the vol/eq levels - better than stock IMO.

 

[Jim_WY]

Hi, Ricky.

I actually have tried connecting the amp ground to the other grounds, and both the blue and blue/white wires to the head unit's power antenna/amp output.

There's good +12 at the blue and blue/white wires in the Explorer's harness (when the head unit is turned on). And, of course, the amp ground wire is tied to the other two ground wires (the one from the car chassis and the one for the head unit) making for three grounds tied at that point. Every connection is soldered, so the connections are good.

The problem is that with either my replacement head unit OR the stock head unit, I get no audio at all. So I'm thinking that the stock amplifier is not operating at all even though it's getting the correct signals to tell it to power up.

That leads me to the conclusion that the amp itself is shutting down or is bad. I read in another old thread on this site a post saying that these amps will shut themselves down to protect themselves if they detect a lower than expected speaker load impedance on any of their four channels.

So I was fishing for any thoughts on what to tear apart first in this Explorer to gain access to this alleged factory power amplifier and/or the speaker connections so that I can ohm them out and see if one (or more) are shorted, thus causing this.

I could just start taking door panels off one by one, but that seems like a lot more work than if I could find a point to gain access to all of the speaker connections all at once. My luck would be that I'd take off all four door panels before finding the bad speaker

Maybe I'll just start tearing things apart sometime when I've got the time to do it.

 

[617ricky]

Hmmm, so it could be the amp or it could be wiring.. If it's the amp that's bad, all you'll need is the amp bypass cable - it doesn't plug into the amp at all, just the wire bundle coming from the front.. That's how my setup is right now with it bypassed.. The cable is only around $10 on ebay, and while it's not a fun job, it's not THAT big if you're good with your hands.. I just pried off the panel halfway with a hammer claw, and put my arm in there to give me some space, and then with the other hand just felt around, unplugged the 2 plugs, and then plugged them into the bypass..

If it's the wiring that's bad on the other hand (which neither of us know), then your solution is running new speaker wires from your deck to the door speakers... It sounds easy enough, but you gotta take off all 4 door panels, and then run the wire thru the door jambs.. That's definitely a bigger more time-consuming job than the bypass cable tho..