help! my radio is smarter than me! (2005)

[annah]

This is going to sound thoroughly stupid, but I can't find the answer anywhere. I bought a new radio to replace my ford radio. So the problem is my wiring. For some reason, the harnesses I've seen don't fit. It's just a plain ole 2005 4x4. My wiring ends in 2 harnesses, both square(or close to). All the harness adapters I've seen for sale for 2005 are rectangular.

Is there a trick I'm missing here? Do both wires plug into the same adapter?

As sad as this is, this is not the first radio I've done. The major problem is that my husband has the car at work while I'm trying to shop for wiring, so I can't look at both at the same time, and I certainly don't want to break (or fry)something!

 

[Donner]

Where did you buy the radio? What are the details of the radio (make, model)? You need a harness from your radio. The harness will attach to a harness coming from the vehicle... Two harnesses will be used to make one.

 

[annah]

It's a jvc. The wiring that comes with the radio connects to the radio, ends in wires.

The part that I am missing, and thus attempting to purchase, is the piece that attaches to the ford wiring harness, and ends in wires. I could save myself a lot of grief and just hack off and splice wires, but I was attempting to avoid that.

Circuit city says they have the piece I need, and refuse to sell it to me, unless I want to pay for install.

Sorry, I know it's a bit hard to describe with out pictures, but I am looking for info on what I suppose would be called a ford wiring adapter.

The ford wiring adapters that I have seen for sale, do not look to fit the wiring inside *my* car.

 

[Donner]

Adapters to a Ford harness, they are sold at Wal-Mart... I've purchased several. The harness will wire up to your JVC harness, and plug into your ford (inside dash) harness.

 

[annah]

I've looked at walmart, and they don't have the right year range. I think they said up to 2001 or 2002.

Any idea why my ford wiring doesn't look like what the companies are selling for a 2005? I obviously can't be the only person with this issue. I've looked at circuit city, best buy, 3 local audio places, and ebay, to no avail.

 

[ford freak]

You can et the correct harness here.


http://www.installer.com/

 

[fixxxer]

You can also get the correct adapter harness through Crutchfield electronics

 

[annah]

I looked at installer.com, and still don't see exactly what I need. My harness looks like this http://www.installer.com/item/display_item.php?it=71-5700 There are 3 in the pic, but it looks like I have the 2 on the right. It looks like installer.com has a sqare adapter, but its only 1, whereas I have 2 plugs. The second plug is smaller and has only 2 wires going into it.

 

[kelly2]

Metra part # 70-1771. unless you have a factory sub, you don't need to worry about the 2nd harness. and wal-mart should have that harness. same as the one for 01-02 explorer.

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&hs=1XV&q=Metra+70-1771&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

 

[jrford]

there are two types of plugs - World Plug (older of the two, my '04 Ex has these) and Phase II plugs. If i remember the World is Black while the Phase II is grey. Also in the phase II plugs i noticed that the pinouts are slightly different, I thought Batt, Acc, Grnd are bigger connectors on the ends while the World they are all the same.
For the Connectors if you have 3 then the smallest is for the sub, the bigger of the Square plugs is for the Steering wheel controls, Rear DVD, Rear Controls. The middle sized is the speakers, power etc. 71-5700 looks like my plugs.
Hopefully this helps,

 

[annah]

I finally found what I need. Well, not exact at any rate. I found that the second smaller plug does say amp. However I'm fairly certain that I dont actually have one, and there were only 2 wires running into it. At any rate, it didn't make a difference in sound quality when I unplugged it.

So following advice listed, I went up to walmart looking for a plug. And of course *my* walmart doesn't have the right one. They don't carry Metra, it's another brand, and nothing for 2001-2002 explorers, only the rectangular plugs.

So I ordered the part through circuit city.com, for local pickup. haha. Pulled one over on the guys who refused to sell to me last week. So I went with the 80-1771, as opposed to the 70. I didn't buy the other harness piece, I just cut the ends off and soldered to my jvc harness. I explained my horrid treatment from the last visit, combined with the fact that my order wasn't ready when I got there and they gave me a $24 giftcard.

So all in all, a lot of confusion, and over a week, but I finally have the new radio in and working. And all that silly effort just so I had an auxillary plug to plug in my mp3 player!

Thanks everyone for your help!!!