Questions regarding lighting and replacing speakers in a '95 Explorer Eddie Bauer

[phreaky_d]

Hi, everyone…I have two questions concerning the interior lighting and replacing the factory JBL speakers and subwoofer in my '95 Explorer Eddie Bauer. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide:

1. I recently replaced some of the instrument cluster bulbs since my interior lights would not light up at nighttime. However, I have noticed that at night, some other areas on the dash or by the stereo do not light up. Specifically, the headlamp controls, fog lamps control, rear window defroster control, and rear wiper control do not light up. Can anyone tell me if those controls are supposed to illuminate with that light blue glow at night?

2. I have the factory JBL premium audio system in my Explorer, but the speakers sound tinny and the subwoofer no longer works. I have an older Pioneer AVIC-X930BT navigation system that I want to install in the car, and I also want to replace the factory speakers and subwoofer with some Pioneer speakers. I went to Best Buy and the Geek Squad adviser told me to get two pairs of the Pioneer TS-D6802R speakers and furthermore told me that I would need an 8" subwoofer that could fit in the rear quarter panel of the car where the original subwoofer is located. After doing some brief searching, I found the following possibility for a new subwoofer:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/Subwoofers/Shallow+Mount/TS-SW2002D2

Can anyone please tell me if this will work?

 

[J_C]

See the following topic where another guy with the JBL sub is tearing his open right now. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=417949

The consensus seems to be that pre-'97 (or was it '97 and older, I forget) the JBL sub was 8 ohm, 6.5" diameter not 8", so fitting an 8" would require carving the box up to make it fit, or a new custom box, or just putting a new box in the cargo area, and with it not being 8 ohm the impedance may be too low for the amp to handle.

If you're set on going with a lower impedance speaker you could try it with the existing amp then if it blows the amp you'd just end up doing what the other option is already, to replace the amp too.

To me upgrading the amp, subwoofer, and those 6x8" speakers seems like overkill for a '95 vehicle unless it's very low miles or already had engine and tranny rebuilt in recent years.

The speakers, sub, and probably needing a new amp will run roughly $300+ based on Bestbuy pricing while the following is only $70.

I mean that for 1/3rd the price of the recommended 6x8 there's these, but I don't know if there is any mounting issue or were the others just equipped with an OEM plug?:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/pioneer...pair/4005297.p?id=1218447366997&skuId=4005297

... and in that forum topic I linked, the guy doing his linked to a Pyramid WH68 6.5" sub on ebay which ended up selling for ~$19 delivered. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pyramid-Pro...Car_Subwoofers_Enclosures&hash=item20f12f53b2

I do not have the JBL sub nor a pre-'97 Explorer so I can't say with certainty that's the right speaker for the job, just going off what others doing it are saying.

Anyway, if it were my '95, I wouldn't spend $100+ today for a sub (and probably more for a new amp, that sub far outclasses the whimpy OEM JBL amp) that's going to stay with the vehicle. For that money I'd put it in a separate box in the cargo area, then you can also end up with something better than a shallow mount 8" that you had to hack up the OEM box to make fit.

 

[bobflood]

Hi, everyone…I have two questions concerning the interior lighting and replacing the factory JBL speakers and subwoofer in my '95 Explorer Eddie Bauer. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide:

1. I recently replaced some of the instrument cluster bulbs since my interior lights would not light up at nighttime. However, I have noticed that at night, some other areas on the dash or by the stereo do not light up. Specifically, the headlamp controls, fog lamps control, rear window defroster control, and rear wiper control do not light up. Can anyone tell me if those controls are supposed to illuminate with that light blue glow at night?

Yes, they should light up; individual little bulbs for each button. The headlamp switch bulb burns out a lot, since that switch is illuminated whenever the truck is running. The others just illuminate when the lights are on. You can order the bulbs in the little bulb mountings on autoillumination.com (think they are T3 but not sure); very hard to match the color but better than nothing. Good luck.

 

[DjDom]

To me upgrading the amp, subwoofer, and those 6x8" speakers seems like overkill for a '95 vehicle unless it's very low miles or already had engine and tranny rebuilt in recent years.

Disagree with this.

Never too late to upgrade your sound system. It can always be ripped out if need be, and will work in any Ford.

I have new 6x8s in my doors, a nice amp and an aftermarket 10 inch sub. Oh, and a Pioneer Double Din head unit. Nothing is stock in my sound system, and it's great.
Just don't cheap out and buy crappy stuff, and you'll be good.

 

[J_C]

^ can't agree. If the budget won't stretch for a newer vehicle then hundreds spent on a custom sound system only to have to rip it out trying to recoup the value is wasted time and money.

Sound is an accessory. Build it on a solid rig, not one 20 years old. You can manage to do without uber audio for the time it takes to drive somewhere and put the money into a home system if audio is that important. Besides, the main difference is notable at high volume which just distracts from driving and safety. If you can't enjoy a song at normal fidelity then the song wasn't very good.

 

[nathaniversen]

I have a 95 Limited with the same setup, and a few years ago I went through this same thing.

Without installing your Pioneer nav unit, you can replace the speakers and sub without too much problem. New door speakers by themselves will wake the stock system up like you wouldn't believe. The pioneers you listed should be fine, but it wouldn't hurt to listen to a range of sample 6x8 inch speakers to see if there are any you particularly like. Also, don't cut or let an installer cut your door speaker wires like a fool, use these or an equivalent:
http://www.metraonline.com/part/72-5512

As has been said, the sub for your year is 6.5 inch, 8 ohm. I'll go deeper into subs later.


Now, if you want to install the nav unit, that opens a whole can of worms and wiring diagrams.

First thing first, the install will require this or an equivalent:
http://www.metraonline.com/part/70-5601
It's a set of adapter harnesses for where the stock head unit plugs in at the front and the stock speaker amps plug into the vehicle wiring near the back. **No stock wiring needs to be cut when using this kit correctly**. The head unit in the premium system does not create the speaker power, it controls two amps (one for the sub and one for the door speakers) under the same panel the stock sub is under. Both of those need to go bye-bye.

Now with that adapter you have a choice, either run its speaker leads from where it plugs into the back of the truck up to your navigation unit and have it poer the door speakers, or cut them short and run RCA cables from the nav unit to a new amp that gets put back in the stock amp location. (The stock amp is inoperable without the stock head unit.)

As said, you need a 6.5" sub for your year, shop around for one that you like. You'll need another small amp to power it and run another set of RCA's from the nav unit back to it. (Initially I tried re-purposing the stock sub amp and actually got it to work, but it requires some ridiculously high power line inputs provided by the stock speaker amp or else it sounds absolutely terrible.) Alternatively, you could find an amp that has speaker and sub outputs all in one, like some newer Alpine amps I've seen.

You'll lose the use of your stock CD changer in your armrest, it's not adaptable.

You can keep the operation of your power antenna, you need to make sure to keep the little white box that's hooked to to the sub chassis in the back of the truck, and hook the blue wire from the Metra kit to the antenna trigger output of your nav unit.

---

As an example, my system is set up as such:
It starts with an Alpine CDA-7998 deadhead unit that runs two sets of RCA's to a US Amps US-X2R in the place of my old CD changer in the armrest. The X2 then sends three sets of RCA's towards the back of the truck, two for door speakers and one for a midwoofer, which join another set for a subwoofer that runs straight from the Alpine, for a total of four sets. The door speakers were replaced with four Pioneer TS-A6872R's ($31 shipped from eBay, couldn't pass them up even if they aren't the greatest) and are powered by a Rockford Fosgate PBR300X4 which is fed from the normal outputs of the X2. The stock 6.5 inch sub was replaced with a 6.5 woofer from a coaxial speaker set to give it greater frequency response, and is driven by some small Kenwood amp I had laying around and fed with the midwoofer feed from the X2 with something like a 500hz cutoff . (This is actually closer to the behavior of the stock 6.5 inch sub and amp; it wasn't truly a "subwoofer" with a 200-somethign-hz cutoff, but a midwoofer that provided bass reinforcement at higher frequencies like 400hz.) The fourth set of RCA's then run out of the back panel so I can connect a set of 10 inch subs for when I feel like being particularly annoying.

 

[phreaky_d]

Thank you all very much for the advice, I really appreciate it! Ordinarily I would totally agree with J_C, but I actually DO intend on keeping this car for as long as possible. I really like it a lot and it's served my family and me quite well. So I do still wish to upgrade the sound system and proceed with getting some new speakers and a sub. As far as the installation goes, I don't know the first thing about that so I intend on just taking it to my local Best Buy and have some Geek Squad guys take care of it. I'll keep shopping around for some cheap (but decent) speakers and a decent sub…maybe I'll check and see what's on Crutchfield as well. I'll have to look into replacing those light bulbs as well, but at least now I know those controls are in fact actually supposed to light up! Also, my antenna is bent and the power function no longer works. Can anyone recommend a good replacement? I don't need anything fancy, just a decent antenna that'll get me some stations...

 

[1996BLKBauer]

To be honest with you the stock JBL speakers are not bad at all when being powered by an aftermarket amp, try it out and see. The sub foam is probably toast, and the amp may or maynot be dead, I would suggest replacing both. There are tons of threads on doing that, I removed both and went with two 12's and a 500watt amp. Rockford Fostgate sells super small digital amplifiers that crank out a lot of power, any sub will do, basically find the best that you can afford.

 

[nathaniversen]

If the antenna mast is bent you should be able to replace it with this, and barring some catastrophic failure inside the motor it should work again.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ford-EXPLOR...her_Vehicle_Parts&hash=item56413eae7b&vxp=mtr

 

[phreaky_d]

If the antenna mast is bent you should be able to replace it with this, and barring some catastrophic failure inside the motor it should work again.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ford-EXPLOR...her_Vehicle_Parts&hash=item56413eae7b&vxp=mtr

Awesome…thanks a ton for the link!

 

[Flash]

To be honest with you the stock JBL speakers are not bad at all when being powered by an aftermarket amp,

In the stereophile world JBL speakers are known as Junk But Loud.

Meaning they're about 90% as good as the really good ones and can handle a lot of volume.

For us mere mortals they're plenty good and represent a high bang for buck ratio.

 

[J_C]

It may be apples and oranges at this point. Even a higher tiered speaker set than the JBLs may not be in great shape after the vehicle is exposed to 20 years of summer/winter/UV/oxygen/moisture/etc. Replacing the JBLs with essentially the exact same thing but recently manufactured could be an upgrade.

As for keeping the vehicle a long as possible, that may be the plan but the reality is that at some point there's going to be a failure that could cause you to decide it's not cost effective to keep repairing it.

 

[nathaniversen]

I can attest that the JBL's that came out of my Explorer were horrible at that point in their life, they sounded warm but lacked clarity and I don't think they were rendering anything over 10k hz. And those were just the front door speakers, the rear door speakers didn't look like anything more than the standard cheap Ford speaker of the time.

The thing about upgraded equipment is that none of it is super glued in, he can take everything with him to the next vehicle. The only exception might be the 6x8 speakers.

 

[phreaky_d]

Sure, I totally recognize that it could be a money drain to keep this car forever…after all, it's about 20 years old. But if I can get even another 10 good years out of it without sinking TOO much money into it, I'll be happy. So I think I've come up with some speaker and subwoofer replacements…here's a link to a cheap subwoofer I found with decent reviews. Ideally I want to just swap out the factory woofer with this one without having to modify anything:

http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-dc160-8-6-1-2-classic-woofer--295-305

I also think I might get these speakers for the front and rears:

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130TG6845R/Pioneer-TS-G6845R.html?tp=105

What do you guys think of this setup? Will the speakers and subwoofer work for my car?

 

[1996BLKBauer]

In the stereophile world JBL speakers are known as Junk But Loud.

Meaning they're about 90% as good as the really good ones and can handle a lot of volume.

For us mere mortals they're plenty good and represent a high bang for buck ratio.

I am also sort of a sterophile, lol, had a pair of the "Famous" L-100s, they sounded terrible. I'll Take any pair of my Polks over those. My pride and Joys are a pair of Polk Audio SDA1's...

 

[Flash]

I am also sort of a sterophile, lol, had a pair of the "Famous" L-100s, they sounded terrible. I'll Take any pair of my Polks over those. My pride and Joys are a pair of Polk Audio SDA1's...

Can't really go wrong with Polk.

I used to be a Nakamichi fanboy but they've sold the rights to put the brand on whoever pays for it.

 

[phreaky_d]

Sure, I totally recognize that it could be a money drain to keep this car forever…after all, it's about 20 years old. But if I can get even another 10 good years out of it without sinking TOO much money into it, I'll be happy. So I think I've come up with some speaker and subwoofer replacements…here's a link to a cheap subwoofer I found with decent reviews. Ideally I want to just swap out the factory woofer with this one without having to modify anything:

http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-dc160-8-6-1-2-classic-woofer--295-305

I also think I might get these speakers for the front and rears:

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130TG6845R/Pioneer-TS-G6845R.html?tp=105

What do you guys think of this setup? Will the speakers and subwoofer work for my car?

Quick bump to see what you guys think of this potential cheap setup...

 

[J_C]

^ Hard for me to say not knowing the available mounting depth for the sub or whether it has compatible mounting holes and/or your willingness to modify the enclosure or drill new holes... whatever it requires.

 

[DjDom]

You can get those Pioneer door speakers for cheaper at Walmart now a days.
That sub isn't the best.

 

[phreaky_d]

Thanks, guys…and yes, I would prefer to do as little modification as possible for the subwoofer. I'd like to try and get a decent sub that's as close to the factory one as possible. I know J_C mentioned the Pyramid sub that someone else was installing, but that also looks pretty cheap. Can you guys recommend a good replacement sub that has roughly the same specs as the factory JBL sub so I can avoid having to modify the enclosure?