Featured Was wondering if someone could help me make sense of an issue I stumbled upon?

[GomerPyle]

On a good note, you gained experience and now know you can handle a future install. Maybe start helping friends as well and spreading the hobby.

Yup. Exactly.

Overall, alot to take home with it

 

[1point21gigawatts]

Hi everyone, Thanks in advance if you're here looking at this as I am new to the forum.

I am probably 3/10 knowledgeable on car audio set ups, but recently stumbled upon some weird stuff in my first car I bought/newly found project car.

I'll put the "short run down" first and explain details later as to not discourage anyone from helping (don't want to bore anyone).
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Car: 2002 Mustang GT (convertible - Not Sure if its relevant)
Audio: Mach 460 with the 2 factory amps under the seat

Aftermarket unit: Pioneer FH-X720BT (Pioneer Unit Link)
Aftermarket Speakers: Unsure (I remember just picking them)

Parts Purchased So Far: Metra Wiring Harness
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Short Run Down

Issue:

Sound to speakers works but sounds VERY diminished. Like an old radio with no bass.

Incidentally found 2 AMPS unplugged under back seats. Plugged them back in with factory harnesses. Now ZERO sound to speakers. (unplugged, sound back)

After researching, I found my car needs a special secondary RCA harness to integrate the amps, to allow the aftermarket speakers to function.

Was ready to add the secondary harness (Metra linked above + RCA), got the dash off and found 4 speaker wires spliced into a Metra harness to the Pioneers unit harness. No secondary RCA harness.

UNIT --> Pioneer Unit harness--> Metra + 4 speaker wires --> Vehicle Lines (Pics attached)

The research (Here) says it should just be:

Pioneer unit harness--> Metra Harness + RCA harness included spliced together --> Vehicle lines

The 4 speaker wires threw me for a loop and I didn't want to mess anything up!

Can someone help me make sense of the correct way to proceed?

I am assuming that the RCA harness, speaker wires, METRA harness are able to be all spiced together with the RCA harness, but I didn't want to cause more problems.

Unfortunately, I will have to leave it as is, if that's the outcome here, but wanted to 100% confirm before I started "splicing and dicing" like an idiot.

THANKS again, I appreciate any input!
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LONG Version (May have more Info to help, but wasn't sure)

Many many years ago, My factory speakers were blown and rattling and very bad sound, head unit/disc changer broken. Had them replaced at a "professional shop"

Picked the car up and the speakers had sound, and worked, but they sounded like they had zero... absolutely zero depth. Think old 1995 radio with FM tuner. No bass or anything. More on this in long story.

Working on convertible top here last week, I took back seat out to get to the convertible motor and cylinders, I notice 2 amps that were unplugged.

Racking my brain I remembered the only time seat was off was during speaker install. "They must have forgot to plug them in, and that's why it sounds crappy"

Plugged them in and checked.... no sound. Unplugged them.... sound, but as before (crappy)

Did a deep dive and found this write up (Here) that many people had this issue with aftermarket units in this vehicle with the Mach 460 system.

Purchased the items listed, got into the dash.... found speaker wires all spliced in and didn't want to mess anything up.

My understanding is that I just need to splice in the RCA harness where it is advised, and it will integrate those amps, achieving normal sound?

I feel the shop took the lazy route and tried to sell me aftermarket AMPS and such, but who knows. I don't really care because 1) I have no idea if that's the case, 2) I drove it for almost 15 years as is and accepted that I would have crappy sound forever (haha)

I am hoping there is a fix.

So.... Thanks to anyone here still reading and can help.

Cheers!

Gomer

One amp is done and one amp is not grounded properly. Only 2 speakers are running. Wire the other 2 speakers up.

 

[1point21gigawatts]

You are already bypass the amps.

 

[1point21gigawatts]

By the way, nice car. Good year model. Anything from 1994-2002 is dope to me. I died in 2002 and woke up 3 days later. I was struck by a car going 60 mph it slowed down from 90 mph. Took 2.8 seconds to impact and 0.2 seconds to wake up. 2/12/2002-2/15/2002. Happy Valentine’s Day. Love.

 

[GomerPyle]

One amp is done and one amp is not grounded properly. Only 2 speakers are running. Wire the other 2 speakers up.

Hey. See the whole story here.

Shop totally bunged up the job.

Amps were completely unplugged. I posted links to other threads and stuff explaining the issue

It's very bizarre.

This shop was "brick and mortar" car audio too. Not a best buy or circuit city place.

I do still have to resplice the front, but will get to that soon.

As of last update I have sound and good depth, the shop completely tried to rip me off.... or no one should ever use them because of incompetence!

 

[GomerPyle]

By the way, nice car. Good year model. Anything from 1994-2002 is dope to me. I died in 2002 and woke up 3 days later. I was struck by a car going 60 mph it slowed down from 90 mph. Took 2.8 seconds to impact and 0.2 seconds to wake up. 2/12/2002-2/15/2002. Happy Valentine’s Day. Love.

Thanks!!! I love it.

Just started to put a lot of upgrades in it too.

Finally fixed the convertible top, which allowed me to discover the original problem

 

[1point21gigawatts]

Don’t wire them amps back up. One is done. Flooded. The other needs to grounded better. Once you ground the head unit’s amp better you’ll short your head unit. Then you’ll have to unplug your head unit after unplugging that amp and then plug your head unit back in and then say thank you Jesus.

 

[1point21gigawatts]

Disregard the olive oil girls. They mean no harm.

 

[GomerPyle]

Whelp. Another confusing update, lol

I got the driver side door off (finally) and found the "new" speaker they put in was wired to the factory harness (see images)

Now, so far, I have the 4 mystery speaker wires.

2 of 4: I found going to the back, which I cut and re-spliced the factory harness wires (amps/rear speakers), and removed

After this I did a quick test and the system sounded great, off the bat.

The other 2: I had assumed were running 1 to driver door speaker, 1 to passenger side speaker.

Whelp.... nope. I'm dumbfounded.

Any idea where these last 2 speaker wires could be going?? LOL!

I'll pop the other door aff today and peek.... but this just keeps getting more and more bizarre.

Wonder if they spliced somewhere else in the harness that I can't see?

Cheers gents

 

[GomerPyle]

Now I'm sitting here thinking.

Looked back at the other pics of the rear.

I'm going to almost guarantee they did the same thing up front (see pic of rear find here)

I bet they found the harness somewhere and spliced the front 2 in to it.

Maybe I'll leave the passenger door and find that first here.

Will update soon.

 

[mahc 10+ year member]

Whelp. Another confusing update, lol

I got the driver side door off (finally) and found the "new" speaker they put in was wired to the factory harness (see images)

Now, so far, I have the 4 mystery speaker wires.

2 of 4: I found going to the back, which I cut and re-spliced the factory harness wires (amps/rear speakers), and removed

After this I did a quick test and the system sounded great, off the bat.

The other 2: I had assumed were running 1 to driver door speaker, 1 to passenger side speaker.

Whelp.... nope. I'm dumbfounded.

Any idea where these last 2 speaker wires could be going?? LOL!

I'll pop the other door aff today and peek.... but this just keeps getting more and more bizarre.

Wonder if they spliced somewhere else in the harness that I can't see?

Cheers gents

Poke them with a multimeter to see what kind of readings they give.

 

[GomerPyle]

Poke them with a multimeter to see what kind of readings they give.

Will do

 

[GomerPyle]

Well, I guess this will be the final update here, gents.

The job is all buttoned up, and boy.... are they bastards.

 

[GomerPyle]

So, I saw where the remaining 2 speaker wires were running, and it seemed I had to take the door off, so I did.

To my surprise, the speaker was on the factory harness.... F

I crawled under the passenger dash and I saw where they spliced in. All the way up under, they cut the 2 wires and wired them in.

I barely had enough room to fit my mitts where they did it. (pic attached)

Pure scum.

To boot... they soldered them and wrapped electrical tape about 1000x around the connections.

So I pulled it apart, and connected them all up, and called it a day.

Put that crap right in the trash, put everything back together. Sound is back to how it SHOULD sound.

Absolutely garbage job. Super annoyed, but learned a lot about this stuff. I doubt I'll upgrade anything, as its a joy ride car and I'll probably make it as loud as possible soon after I saw Zall the exhaust out (next job)

The convertible top is 100% fixed, and I finally have a decent radio.

Thanks to everyone who contributed and helped!

Cheers.

 

[1aespinoza 10+ year member]

Absolutely garbage job. Super annoyed, but learned a lot about this stuff.

As a public service you should put that shop on blast in the Google/Apple Maps. Everyone searching for audio shops in the area will know to proceed with caution. Also a shoutout to this site so they too can edumacate themselves.

 

[spokey9 5,000+ posts]

Absolutely put them on blast...if you paid for that and they deserve it...

 

[mahc 10+ year member]

No excuse for winging an install like this.

 

[GomerPyle]

As a public service you should put that shop on blast in the Google/Apple Maps. Everyone searching for audio shops in the area will know to proceed with caution. Also a shoutout to this site so they too can edumacate themselves.

Already done. Included images. No response either.

Hopefully others see my reviews.

D-Bags

 

[GomerPyle]

As a public service you should put that shop on blast in the Google/Apple Maps. Everyone searching for audio shops in the area will know to proceed with caution. Also a shoutout to this site so they too can edumacate themselves.

Already done. Included images. No response either.

Hopefully others see my reviews.

D-Bags

 

[GomerPyle]

No excuse for winging an install like this.

Their 1 brick and mortar closed.

The other is still open.

I'm assuming it's because they ****