Able to Use Factory Sub Wiring?

[Inverhyt]

Alright, so I've torn out the old head unit and very quickly (I mean it took four hours between me and two friends) figured out that there was another amp in the back powering the four door speakers as we couldn't find a wiring diagram for the harness in the front. We did manage to get power to the stereo, but nothing else. We're probably just going to pull off all the trim and wire it ourselves and pull the old amp out.

Does anyone know good spots to run all this wiring before we start pulling trim off?

 

[Mbrooks420]

I'd run just run it under the dash, and under the sill plate trim and up into the doors.

 

[J_C]

Yeah where else would you put it? That's probably where the original wiring was anyway.

 

[Mbrooks420]

The original runs from the back.

 

[J_C]

^ Yeah but still along the door sills... wire isn't directional.

 

[Mbrooks420]

It probably isn't enough conductors, and routed properly to reuse. I'm quite aware wire isn't directional.

 

[J_C]

^ The point was that's the normal place to put them.

 

[Inverhyt]

I just found wires that ran up to the front of the head unit and spliced speaker wires into them. Just randomly, and noted the colors and what speakers I was hooking up. Then I hooked those wires up to the head unit and it works perfectly.

The sub was a little more difficult, but I made it happen. I found the wire holders under the mats on the passenger side and ran all my cables through there and to the amp, which I put in the rear passenger side panel like the old amps, except with a lot more room because I removed all the amps in there

 

[C420sailor]

Thread resurrection!

I’ve got a ‘99 EB. It has premium sound of some type—factory sub in the back. With some kind of Chinese/Korean garbage aftermarket head unit that is awful. Factory sub doesn’t work. I’m replacing it with a 2-Din Kenwood head unit, nothing fancy, but I’d like to wire the factory sub in. I’m not an audiophile, but having a little bass would be nice.

I’ve read that there are a few versions of premium sound in 2nd gen Explorers—some are easily upgradeable, and others require a full tear-out, new amp, etc etc.

I’m not sure which version I have, and I don’t have the truck with me (it’s a few states away) so I can’t tear it apart and look. Any thoughts on what system this is, and how extensive it’ll be to do what I want it to do?

 

[J_C]

C420sailor, I would presume that the aftermarket head unit had to be wired direct to the speakers, so there is this unknown variable of how that was done. They might've taken wires back to the sub amp to do it, or rerouted them after disconnecting from the factory amp, or did new wire runs that grafted on somewhere.

Regardless, you should have the wires you need at the aftermarket head unit, to wire in the new one. If they did not preserve the factory harness connector then you'll have to go by wire color, pinout for the aftermarket head unit to map them out, or use a multimeter to check wire resistance between each output wire and the speakers to determine which is which, as well as get the amp power wire, clock/memory wire, and ground (or see one of the wiring diagrams linked in my sig).

The aux or sub out from the new amp will go back to the sub amp. If they left that factory wire intact, great. If not, you'll need to add that.

You can try to reverse engineer the factory sub amp to reuse it, but if that seems daunting then just buy a standard, modest wattage (the factory sub driver can't take much wattage, don't recall how much but 200W would be more than enough if it can do, say 80W at low THD) replacement amp small enough to strap in where the original was, and with this conservative wattage you should be able to reuse the existing power wires that went to the factory amp, or again will have to string new wire if the prior installation removed that.