Bypass harness doesn't fit - PICS INCLUDED

[97Sportrac]

So I peeled back the quarter panel and found the amplifier to have two plugs.

One of them is a rectangular one with the top row of eight plugs full and then the second row on the bottom with only three of the six plugs full. I assume that the bottom eight are the amplified speaker inputs and the top three would be things like power.

The second plug is a smaller one with only eight connections so I assume they are speaker outputs. The thing that is throwing me though is that the colors don't match up with the standard speaker colors (purple, green, grey, white)... What the hell?

So anyway in the manual it says I got to link these two things together. The bypass harness fits into the bigger rectangular plug but the small one doesn't go in there... what am I supposed to do?

I think the harness bypasses the things such as power because the harness only has 8 pins while the stock Ford harness has 11 pins. Anyway I was thinking of hooking up the one side that fits. I was thinking of then cutting the harness in half and cutting the stock square looking harness in half and splicing the two together... is that what you guys did? I have no idea what color goes with which though on this. Any help would be appreciated.

Here are various pics:
big plug - this is the stock ford plug

small plug - this is also the stock ford plug

here is what my amp bypass kit consists of (the bypass cable is on the very left)

 

[Hokie]

Ummm. they should fit.. that small one often doesn't look like it would fit, but thats just a standard 5008 plug setup.

 

[Hokie]

Oh wait.. what am I thinking? You need the harness that runs speaker leads from the amp and back to the head unit. It'll have a plug that plugs into the amp, and you have to run 8 wires from the amp in the back up to the radio up front. The kit you have is for the first gen X's

 

[IAmTodd]

First a Little background info. I have no idea what you're look for but I had problems when I did my amp bypass. The larger plug has the wires that go to the speakers, power, ground, and amp-kick-on. The square one with the 8 pins and small wires are preamps coming from the HU.

Here's wat I did: They Audio shop around here had only one bypass for Explorers. so I plugged the matching end into the one it would fit, cut off the square one, and using a wiring diagram matched them up(not fun). Soldered(sp?) them together, turn the radio on, little or no sound with a lot of static. With much aggrivation, took it up to the audio shop(I try to do all work myself). They say the wire is too small coming form the HU, Like what Bert sad. So I ran new, 16 gage I think, wire from the HU back to the by-pass, which I had already cut in half from before. Make sure to lable each end and keep it neat, makes it much easier. I've been running that setup for around a year and its been good.

Good luck and if you have any questions on it, PM me!

 

[explorersvt]

I had this same problem trying to bypass my stock amp. I ended up taking my X to Car toys and paying them $25 to make a plug that fit. Them basically hard wired a loop where the bypass plugs would go. Worked like a charm though.

 

[97Sportrac]

What so essentially in the end the amp has nothing plugged into it.

I plug the end of the bypass harness that fits into the rectangular end. I need to chop the stock ford end off and chop the other end of the bypass harness off and splice them together?

Do you guys recall what colors match up to which speaker and polarity on the small square plug?

 

[Hokie]

I KNOW for a fact that Metra or someone makes a kit that plugs directly to the factory amp wires in the back and you run the speaker wires forward. One plug you have there should for the big plug in the dash. You get the power and ground wires off this plug and the speaker connections from the wires you run from the back. Again, you have the 1st Gen kit. If you get the 2nd Gen kit, it'll make more sense. But its still annoying running the wires to the front. Once I got my X, they dubbed my the Explorer Expert at Crutchfield so I got pretty daggum good at by passing amps.

Oh, and have fun... By passing the amp in a Sport is much more of a pain in the butt than compared to a 4 door. You'll have to pull back the rear cargo panel to get to the amp

 

[97Sportrac]

Is there anyway to make this 1st gen kit fit though? I really don't want to rewire all the speakers manually if they are already wired up and all I need to do is change the plug.

 

[explorersvt]

Just cut and splice at the amp, sorry but i did not do it so i don't know what the colors were.

 

[Hokie]

you don't rewire manually... what you do is run the wires to the HU and then splice normally.

 

[IAmTodd]

Originally posted by 97Sportrac
What so essentially in the end the amp has nothing plugged into it.

Yep Mines laying in a cabinet in the garage. All you have to do is get some good speaker wire, take one and measure the length back to the amp, make 3 more that length. Specifiy each one with front or back, left or right and label them before you put them in. A label maker comes in handy. This become almost impossible once its in the truck.

The "working" half of the by-pass has the speaker location labeled already, as you HU harness should too. Take the time to solder the wires to gether and put shrink wrap on them, and to keep things neat tape your 4 new wires together before putting them in the truck. Run the on the passanger side through the channel right under the sill plate(or whatever its called) where wires are run form the factory.

The reason you have to run new wires it b/c the ones from the HU to the amp are low wattage, pre-amp(duh ) and don't need to handle high wattage and will not. So you trying to shove 20 or so watts through it and it can't all get through. I don't know much about HU but that can't be good for it.

I found this the easiest way, unless there is a kit with all wires and such for it.

 

[97Sportrac]

Ok... that's a good idea... so i need to cut 4 lengths of speaker wire (each with 2 strands (a + and a -) e and connect them to the big rectangular end of the chopped bypass harness.

From there I run I attach the speaker wire as directed and I run this huge bundle up to the HU. From the HU I take out the wires for the speaker output and I wire those up to my newly created 16 guage wires.

Also did your harness match up color (eg purple, white, grey, green) or did it have funny colors that went to the "working" part of the harness. Did these funny colors end up being the proper ones?

 

[IAmTodd]

My god, I think you got it!

I do beleive that they matched up, although I'm not sure what you question is asking

 

[Hokie]

Originally posted by IAmTodd
I found this the easiest way, unless there is a kit with all wires and such for it.

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/...c=11&g=103000&I=120705008&o=m&a=1&cc=01&avf=Y

What you can't see in the pic, is there's about 12 feet of wire attached to the black plug

 

[IAmTodd]

AAAHHH! I see what Bert is getting at. The one on the right on the pic is for the 1st gens(I guess) Thats what I had my first time. Mine was 2 flat ones. But that doesn't make any difference since it won't be used since it what takes the signal from the HU to the amp. So it won't be needed any ways, just as long as the one in the middle fits. I think it will still work.

 

[IAmTodd]

BAH! That would've made it 10X easier!!

 

[97Sportrac]

And approximatetly how many ft of speaker wire is it to run a length from the amp location to the HU?

 

[IAmTodd]

I think its somewhere around 17 feet. I have 20foot RCA Cables run to the back for pre-amp for my sub and there is a little let over, so I'd say somewhere around that area, I remeber that you could get 2, almost 3 from a 50ft spool.

 

[Hokie]

Nope

Originally posted by IAmTodd
AAAHHH! I see what Bert is getting at. The one on the right on the pic is for the 1st gens(I guess) Thats what I had my first time.

That is the kit for the 2nd Gen. The plug on the left goes from the factory amp and you run the wires forward to the HU. The plug on the right has the power and ground wires for the HU and gets plugged into one of the plugs in the dash.

I've got 16' RCA's run in my Sport and my amps are mounted all the way in the back where the pocket used to be

 

[97Sportrac]

Re: Nope

Originally posted by HokieBert
That is the kit for the 2nd Gen. The plug on the left goes from the factory amp and you run the wires forward to the HU. The plug on the right has the power and ground wires for the HU and gets plugged into one of the plugs in the dash.

I've got 16' RCA's run in my Sport and my amps are mounted all the way in the back where the pocket used to be

The plug on the left "goes from the factory amp"... you mean from the factory amp location... it's not plugged into the amplifier right? I think I get everything now... the only thing I'm worried about is that the stock ford plug colors don't match up with the standard colors on the bypass harness... it should work though because my "modified harness" looks exactly the same as the one on the 2nd gen Crutchfield kit.

Also here is a picture I drew... this is to confirm that I'm not messing anything up.

I'd also like to give a big thank you to all the guys on this forum that helped out... I really appreciate it and all the money I saved instead of going to an installer. Thanks a lot!