3...2...1....boom!

[sumone 10+ year member]

will that happen to my car when I connect power to my amp? yea, yea, I know you're all saying no it won't but there's one thing I didn't mention:

I found out half a bottle of peak coolant (brown bottle) spilled in my trunk and all over the carpet. even though it's dry now, you can still feel the carpet and see the oilly substance on your finger. My main power wire got the stuff on it too. Now I know water is a conductor, and maybe some of the ingredients in it are too, so ground won't be hard to find in order to produce a short. I didn't see any flammable warnings on the bottle.

Right now, I have everything done in order to install the amp; ran the rca's, the power, the ground, and the remote. I'm only gonna hook my rear 6x9s up to the amp for now so speaker wire isn't a problem. All that's left for me to do is disconnect neg. terminal from battery, connect the power wire to the battery, reconnect pos. terminal, put the fuse in the holder, and reconnect the negative terminal. Got the holder about 12 inches away.

It's been about 3 months...but I finally did it and based on what you guys say today...tomorrow will be the day...

Click to read more...

 

[pelayostyle 10+ year member]

only one way to find out ............

 

[Boomin Granny 10+ year member]

You should be fine, When I was first into car audio, I opened my trunk when there was a buncha snow on it:banghead: A lot fell into the trunk and even some into the port, I just grabbed as much as I could and let it dry for a couple hours and it was fine. I doubt that oily residue on your carpet will cause any problems.

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

oh yea here's some pics of how I wired stuff through the car (if you care).

- that 4ga power wire you see is just there for no reason since it was too short. I ended up wiring 8ga later that day with an excess of wire.

you're not gonna believe this, but the way I got the seat up was just to push the cushion in, and then up...no screws/tabs restraining it (however I do think some tab's are supposed ot be there by the way it looks)

when I got the seat up I found out some stuff:

0. where my keys were!

1. the previous owner had a system

2. s/he left the ground cable connected, so provided me with a pre-drilled hole for my ground...whew hoo!

3. was probably in an accident or something...all this small broken glass

well, gonna do it today (I took off work just to connect my amp...lol)

 

[allyourblood 10+ year member]

i'm with Boomin... you should be fine. obviously, you should wipe off as much of the stuff from your power wire as you can with a dry rag, and make sure there are NO exposed portions of bare copper.

once you're confident that things are about as clean as they're gonna get, go ahead and try it out. BUT -- double and triple check your ground & power connections, and make sure there are no loose strands at any of your end points (at the amp, at the battery, etc.) that might be creating a short. then check everything again //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

you should be good to go... exciting times! let us know how it works out!

abe m.

 

[allyourblood 10+ year member]

judging from the pics, everything's lookin' good! i don't know if its "proper", but where i had a few different wires running alongside each other i gathered them together with a zip tie or two, to neaten them up (well, the power wires anyway -- keep 'em away from your signal wires, if you can help it).

it's good to hear you've taken your time throughout all this, and made sure you've done it all right. good job! also, glad to hear you got those seats up.

abe m.

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

oh well...looks like I'll have to wait some more:

yesterday I went down to connect stuff then I remembered I should probably crimp some connectors on speaker wire so I could hoook up the speakers instead of just being happy if the amp turned on or not. So I went back upstairs and while doing it, I got a headache and fell asleep....ahhhh!

and now I look out the window today and it's snowing!!! If it doesn't dry up I'll have to wait till friday //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif (cause I get home late wed & thurs). I wanna make sure I have enough headroom for mistakes...and room to correct them...

 

[allyourblood 10+ year member]

weak... well, good luck to ya when you finally get the chance!

abe m.

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

lol, yea that 8ga crimping using my bare hands tire the hell outta me...

I'm kinda glad I didn't do it, cause when I went to sleep last night, I thought of something: the final wire that's going from the fuse holder to battery, I just had measured the distance that the wire would have to be and added a few more inches. The bad thing is that I planned to connect the wire over the top of the battery and on the terminal - if something ever came loose, the hood would be a very good ground, and well, you know the rest.

So it looks like it was for the better....now I gotta buy some more ring terminals; however the stores that I thought would have them (radioshack & ace hardware) don't, so gotta order over the internet. Also some electrical tape would be good too - got a feeling scotch tape isn't good enough for taping over connections (however that's what I've done since the end of the remote, power, & ground wires connecting to the amp were bare just laying in the trunk).

oh yea and about trying to have a clean install...that's pretty much the last thing on my mind - when I took those pictures, it was right after I got them wired; I just like documenting my progress (and especially showing them to my family since they were highly against me doing this stuff).

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

yup; I went ahead and just took it to a shop to install. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

psych!

hell yea I did it! I realize how overprotective I've been; When I went ot do it, I went to a parking lot where people practice driving just so there's people around if anything happened to me. I even called my brother before I was gonna touch the battery and told him to call 911 if I hadn't called him back in 5 minutes. lol. I'm looking for some sparks and stuff to fly, trying not to touch the body of the car at all, etc...

However, when I went to connect the power wire to the battery, low and behold, the ring terminal is too small. Good thing I bought that 4ga kit (even though my power wire is 8ga). That terminal was big enough, but it took a lot of crimping to get the wire to stay. (yes, using my hand-crimper only able to go up to 10ga).

This connection was just a test to see if I could get the amp run; so after playing with settings a while (which I gotta learn how to set gains correctly), with both doors open, and the radio on, I disconnected everything and tried start my car....no go. No one in the parking lot would give me a jump so I had to call my brother back (who was at school and wouldn't be home til a couple hours) and ask him to give me a jump. So I ended up walking home and when my brother got home, we went over and I performed the jump. So it's all good right now.

I'm glad I did this stuff, cause it's given me a lot of confidence on working on my car; first time I did a jump I was all jumpy and scared I'd get electrocuted and stuff; well this was my second time doing a jump.

So all in all, now that I know I can get power to my amp, I gotta:

1. wire my front speakers (my $20 legacy 4x6s) to it.

2. wire my rear 6x9s to it.

3. install my other HU that has 2.5 sets of preamps

4. bolt the amp down.

so I gotta say...first timers...it's not that hard really! and you don't have to be overprotective! (well, not to an insane level). thanks to all on this board who've helped me out since december!

 

[maylar 10+ year member]

You'll be fine with that. You're on your way dude. Congrats for hanging with it. Seriously.

 

[sumone 10+ year member]

Yea, I'm glad I did too...I sure showed my family...