Found my amp, but wiring differs from what I'm hearing about...

[JASlaughter]

Hello, hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I've got a 98 XLT with an external amp. Apparently this is a change in the 98 year where some 98s have internal amps, but either way, mine's external.

I'm bypassing my amp at the moment by wiring all the blues together. My understanding is that I'm really just activating the Ford amp this way, and I really want to bypass it.

I want to bypass it with a harness as I don't like cutting factory wire. I found some bypass kits but they all seem to look like the wrong harness.

Case in point -- the Scosche harness I keep hearing about:

Notice both plugs are rectangular. The wires that plug into my amp, however, are different. One is a rectangular, 16 pin, 11 wire plug (left) and the other is an 8 pin, square plug (right):

I'd really like to bypass this amp and use either a new amp or at least the amp in my 690UB. I'll be upgrading the speakers soon and adding a sub so I need to figure this out.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
-J

 

[aznboi3644]

Yeah...mine was like that. Ford is retarded and the harness companies are retarded also.

Here is the diagram you need...one of the big plugs on that bypass will fit...the small plug you have to cut off and splice into the other end of the harness..just cut the other big plug from the bypass harness off.

 

[JASlaughter]

I think I'm reading that correctly. Just to clarify:

Use that harness I have pictured, then cut off and discard the square piece, and splice the wires into the harness. So nothing is plugging into the old amp.

Is that correct? Also, is there any harness out there for the square piece so I don't have to cut? I haven't been able to find any, and I don't mind cutting up aftermarket harnesses.

Thanks for the great info too, by the way.
-J

 

[aznboi3644]

I haven't found anything.

Nothing plugs into the factory amp...thats why it is called "bypassing"

The small square plug should get cut off...the other long flat end plugs into the harness

 

[5.0]

You can run new speaker wires to the factory amp area and connect them to the "16 pin, 11 wire plug (left)" plug.

I ran my speaker wires from my aftermarket amp to the rectangle plug and had nothing connected to the square plug.