Need Help.. 1996 Ford Explorer XLT.

[m4dioses]

My cousin and I went to install my wife's aftermarket HU into her 1996 Ford Explorer XLT today. The harnesses did not connect to the connectors inside of the dash. I was under the impression I purchased the wrong harness so I figured we'd just hard wire the radio in. After doing some research I found the correct wire colors/diagram and we spliced the aftermarket harness to the wires inside the dash. Radio turns on and follows everything as far as the power goes but there's no sound.

After doing some searching I see there's a few different reasons for this all to do with a factory amplifier;

I'm pretty sure it's because I have a factory amp somewhere in the vehicle and the wires up front will not produce any sound..

The stereo isn't labeled "Premium" or "JBL" anywhere in the vehicle BUT - it does have rear controls AND had a factory CD changer in it when we purchased the vehicle. Also the model # on the radio is F75F-19B165-DA which is the "Premium Casette" model.

I used this as my wire codes for the speaker wiring;

LF+ LIGHT GREEN
LF - WHITE w/ ORANGE
RF + WHITE w/ RED
RF - BROWN
LR + LIGHT BLUE w/ BLACK
LR - YELLOW
RR + PURPLE w/ WHITE
RR - LIGHT BLUE

Which I found on another website but I also found this site; http://mysite.verizon.net/jay_york/Sound_System_Pinouts.html which contradicts the codes and has the same colors I have in my dash.

Now I was also under the impression the vehicles that have the factory amplifier have no antenna input in the dash - my vehicle does have antenna input in the dash so this confuses me even more.

Where would the amplifier be located? I've found two different answers - one in the rear quarter panel near the jack access location and another post which I found here that says;

The amp is located on the BACKSIDE of the metal to the left of the rear speaker, behind the middle of the passenger seatbelt, behind that large plastic piece in the back.
I had to pull about 8 of those plastic plugs, unscrew the seatbelt mount to the floor... unscrew the rear window mount, pull the plastic out far enough to reach back to unscrew the passenger rear speaker mount, reach into that cavity you'll feel the amp. Good ol' number F57F-18T806. It has three mounting screws that you can unscrew from the front, but getting back there is a B.

If anyone could help me get to the bottom of this and get the radio to work it'd be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[toypaseo]

You OEM amp is located right below the passenger side window, in the cargo area, behind the interior panel. Here is a PDF with panel removal instructions...

http://a248.e.akamai.net/pix.crutchfield.com/Manuals/236/236FEX10U.PDF

 

[Sigmo]

This sounds like my problem with a '96, as well.

No sound from the radio/CD unit. So I bought a new radio and the kit to install it. All went well and the new radio works just dandy except still no sound!

Only THEN did I find out that the car may have a power amplifier somewhere in the back that has likely been the problem all along.

Now I've got to figure out how to get to the power amp so I can troubleshoot, repair, or replace it. Perhaps those instructions will get me into it.

Thanks!

 

[m4dioses]

toypaseo,

I've already cut the molex connector in the dash - can I still buy a kit and run it from the amp or not at this point?

Sigmo,

I've done tons of radio installations and have never had as many issues as I'm having with this vehicle, haha. There's always been a quick harness plug and go or a straightforward wiring diagram so I could hardwire.

 

[toypaseo]

Why not just run your own speaker wire, and not include the OEM amp at all?

 

[m4dioses]

That was actually a question I posted over on caraudio forums.. can I take the aftermarket kenwood harnses, take the positive/negative wires and solder speaker wire on to them and run them right to the speakers?

That was the route I wanted to take but never received an answer if it was feasible over there. I was actually just coming back to ask that now.

I honestly don't want to include the factory amp for SQ reasons but I don't want to cut anymore molex connectors off and be like "why isn't this working?" either.

I appreciate the fast replies man, you're awesome. If it's possible to run wire the way I described I'm doing that as opposed to paying 29.99 for a new harness and running wire equally as far.

 

[toypaseo]

That was actually a question I posted over on caraudio forums.. can I take the aftermarket kenwood harnses, take the positive/negative wires and solder speaker wire on to them and run them right to the speakers?

That is what I would do. I haven't done that myself, so I am not sure on getting the power/ground/etc from the harness you cut. I would guess getting those from your cut harness would be as easy as connecting to the correct wires, but like I said, I haven't done it myself...

 

[Sigmo]

My problem is entirely my own ignorance of how this all works.

A factory service manual would have probably showed me exactly what I needed to know before I bought the replacement radio and kit to install it and then wasted my time putting that kit onto the radio and only then figuring out that there was something simple that I was obviously missing.

Now that I know there's a factory power amp in the system, I'll open things up and check that amp. It may be dead, or maybe have a fuse blown that is common to all channels of the amp. Or maybe it shuts down entirely to protect itself if it detects a fault with any of the four speakers, etc. It might be an easy fix.

But I didn't do the proper homework before rushing off to buy the new radio.

But don't worry about that too much. All I'm really out is the cost of the connector kit and my time fiddling with it because I'm now using that car radio, with a cheap power supply, to listen to tunes in an office at work.

 

[w00tah]

When you have a premium system, it has an external amplifier (as noted above) that powers things. When you add an aftermarket headunit, it's already got a amplified signal, where your factory unit was merely a source that went to the amplifier to be sent to the speakers. With an amplifier bypass harness, you plug the input harness into the bypass, and the output harness into the bypass. What this does is allows your headunit's amplifier to power the speakers instead of the factory amplifier.

If you kept the connector, what you should do is solder and shrinkwrap the wires back together so the factory connector is in place, and then use a premium audio wiring harness to hook up your aftermarket deck. The harness you'll get will have two pieces: One to hook up to the connector inside the dash, and then one that has two female ends, which is what you connect the input and output of the factory amp to. You plug those into it, and you're ready to go.

If that's confusing, just send me a message, and I'll try to walk you through it the best I can.

 

[m4dioses]

Naw, I understand it all. My thing is I kind of cut the connector close because the wires in the dash weren't much to work with as it was. I could splice it back on with some work but just as much work to run my own speaker wires. I still haven't tried this to see if it'll work but my wife isn't too happy with no stereo in the car so I'll just run some wires off the back of the headunit tomorrow and try some speakers. If it sounds good I'll have my answer and run my own wire. I couldn't get an answer on either forum.. so the test and see method it is!