Ford 1999 Single Cab F150 Build(Lots Of Images)

[Weeznur32 10+ year member]

The only issue I should run into is the top depth of 7 inches at 20 inches height, but I think/hope that the only issues can be solved by cutting into the back of the seat and moving it forward a bit.

Hmmm.. I did an install in an older f150 single cab but it had about the same room in the back and there is no way that would fit. Hopefully it'll work out....gunna be tough tho

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

And heres an update.

We're one week away from "Installation Week", and whats a more better way to celebrate such an occasion than to get a little bit started. When I say this, I mean that I decided to go ahead and install the the CD player. I was actually planning on doing quite a bit of the wiring and whatnot today but I didn't get a chance to do this.

The CD Player is a Kenwood eXcelon KDC-X991, purchased brand new from Online Car Stereo. My original choice as a headunit was the KDC-X891 and was originally purchased from Woofersetc, but unfortunately the headunit was not actually in stock like it was displayed on the website. Therefore I had to dish out a lot more cash for a head unit which had everything I wanted, but on the good side, I got what I wanted and so much more.

A short summary of my current experience with the head unit.

Compared to it's distant cousin, the KDC-X791 which was actually a little messed up, the -X991 is in a different league completely and price of the head unit shows this as well. I never thought I wouldnt spend so much cash on a single din CD player as I did on this unit, but I can honestly say that I do not regret doing so. The -X991 has ALOT of features, everything to personally customize your head unit from downloadable wallpapers to font and display layouts.

The head unit also has a ton of different EQ, sound manipulation, speaker manipulation, and other sound and volume related features to allow for total control over my speaker's output. The display is really nice and bright with a variety of different colors(over 4k) and alot of fancy and fun animations. Ofcourse there is also the G-Analyzer which I really have no idea of the usefulness of this feature. At the moment, I'm keeping the manual in my glove compartment because of the multitude of different features and also the possibility of getting lost in discovering them.

Another thing which I really love about the headunit is the way that you can actually change the angle of the faceplate and also the way that the motorized facebook folds down when you eject a CD. Much better than the clunky non-motorized faceplate of the KDC-x791.

To begin the install I took a quick trip to Circuit City and Bestbuy looking for a new dash install kit and wiring harness for the CD player install. Came home after purchasing the overpriced accessories and I first began to wire the factory wiring harness adapter to the wiring harness of the headunit.

I gently electrical taped and folded the unneeded wires and zip tied the few wires that would actually come of use to avoid an unorganized mess. After that was done, I shrink wrapped the connections(using matches XD).

Unfortunately when I was cutting wire on the newly bought wiring harness I accidently snipped the illum. wire at its start when cutting another wire. Though not much if any copper was actually affected by this, I decided to continue on and work with this wiring harness. Unfortunately for me, wire splicing the wires(with my teeth), I accidently pulled one of the wires completely out of its socket. So I had to resort to my previous wiring harness, therefore that was twenty dollars down the drain.

Once everything was said and done I began to work on the actual dash install kit which would house and support the headunit. After some tedious work on assembly I installed the CD player into the dash kit. This dash kit is alot more secure and sturdy than the previous one but at the same time, its a pain in the butt to remove and insert unlike the last one.

After this was done, I took the CD player to the truck and began to complete the install. Thanks to the USB cord, Antennae cord, 3 sets of RCA output cords, Auxillary cord, the wiring harness and folded jumbles of electrical taped non-needed wires, the space behind the headunit is non-existent.

Yeah, it looks a mess but it really isn't all that bad. I reconnected the negative battery and decided to put my wiring, wire management, and installation to the test.

The CD player came on and I immediately played around with the settings to get the CD player to recognize my Ipod hooked up the Aux input. It did so but there was no sound output from the door speakers. Turns out that the amplifier was not on because there was no signal from the remote wire. I immediately played around a bit and finally found the remote wire which wasn't the External amplifier control wire which I had originally thought but was indeed the Power amplifier control wire.

After re-splicing the wires and electrical taping and managing the old wires, I retried and thus there was success and there was sound, really nice sound in comparison to my older unit.

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

Oh but there is more.

SM Customz has been progressing on the enclosure build more and more each day and hopefully the box will be here by tomorrow allowing me enough time to play around with the subwoofer installation on Wednesday. Now there has been a lot of skepticism about this subwoofer enclosure's ability to fit into the back seat given the very limited space back there. This skepticism has been on both side including mine, but I have taken measurements which said that this box should be in the clear but just barely.

Here are some pictures provided by SM Customz showing the progress of the box build.

Its going to be a very tough fit but I am determined to make it work.

In regards to the rest of the build, I have decided that I am going with only one component set in the doors, 08' Rainbow SLC 6.5" w/ Cal25 Tweeter, being powered by a Sundown SAX-100.2 amplifier. Both of the components have been purchased and should arrive just in time for the installation. To compliment this setup is 100+ft of Raamat BXT for the floor/wall/and doors of the vehicle and 4 yards of Ensolite.

Now more pictures of the CD player.

I have no idea why I took the seats out when I installed the CD player.

But hopefully today will be the last time I will have to take the CD player out during the whole installation, hopefully.....

 

[na_rsx 10+ year member]

wow, look forward to the completed project

 

[WOT]

Seems like you really just needed to slow down and take some time and not rush when it was your first time. You would have been very happy with the PG rsd's had you actually given them a chance and made them work properly. I love mine, clear as day and get much louder than my ears can take staying that clear and im only giving them 50rms

And as for the stripping wires with your teeth? cmon man......

good luck

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

Seems like you really just needed to slow down and take some time and not rush when it was your first time. You would have been very happy with the PG rsd's had you actually given them a chance and made them work properly. I love mine, clear as day and get much louder than my ears can take staying that clear and im only giving them 50rms
And as for the stripping wires with your teeth? cmon man......

good luck

I actually have a wire stripper. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif Now if I can figure out how to use it.

 

[blackbonnie 5,000+ posts]

I actually have a wire stripper. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif Now if I can figure out how to use it.

if you cant you dont belong here

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

if you cant you dont belong here

It's pretty complex.

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

You would have been very happy with the PG rsd's had you actually given them a chance and made them work properly. I love mine, clear as day and get much louder than my ears can take staying that clear and im only giving them 50rms

Actually with the new head unit, the PG Rsd's sound quite a lot better and all of the distortion which plagued them before is no longer there.

Odd but I'm not complaining, also the lack of engine whine, usb error, *sigh* that last head unit was a mess.

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

Day 1 -

8:30 AM

- So we start things out by a little wire management and disassembly, but our first workplace is underneath a tree. First we take out the seats, then the floor, and a friend of mine begins to work on the big 3, given instructions I have given him from this website.

No problems so far.

As you can see in the above picture, the wiring is a bit of the mess from a combination of audio system, stock, and underneath neon light kit wires.

We have disconnected the power wire and its fuseholder and connection the relay switch and now we're snaking it through a grommet in the firewall to the main cab to be pulled out completely.

I have taken off the middle panel to expose the myriad of clustered and tangled interior neon lights lighting and other assorted wiring.

Removed the distribution blocks and all other components that would hinder the removal of the carpet.

And theres the seats....

Box full of randomness...

Another shot of that mess of wire I get to work out later on.

My friend is beginning to play around with the battery terminals.

The 0/1 awg wire being used on the Big 3 and the the audio system wiring....

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

No more floor! XD

Assortment of tools and accessories sitting on the inside of the hood.

The box is in from SM Customz.

And so is the Sundown SAX 100.2 Two-channel amplifier.

Seeing how the Sundown amplifier will fit in its location. Seems to be the right size to not run into any problems with the seat; mainly the utility that allows the seat to move forward or back.

That mess is a combination of the RCA's, the interior neon lighting wires, underneath neon light console wires, the remote and old HU ground wire(which has now been removed).

I have sorted it out now, beforehand there was a problem with the interior neon lights not all coming on at the same time, the middle one was often delayed by about 15 secs, this has been fixed. I shrink wrapped and re-connected all of the connections and bundled and ziptied the excess wire so it is quite a bit more organized and out of the way than the jumbled mess that it was earlier.

Due to some issues concerning the Big 3 we decided to turn our attention to the subwoofer in the box installation. We were going to use the soldering iron and solder for this project but decided against soldering the female disconnects to the box terminal in the long run since the disconnects are already fitted fairly tight as it is without the need of solder.

On the other hand we did run into one or two issues in this area.

1 - The box terminal came out, so we bought some super/wood glue and re-glued it to its hole in the box.

2 - Some of the disconnects would not fit on the box terminal connectors.

3 - When screwing and securing the subwoofer into the box and its baffle, one of the top screws may have now made it into wood judging by its quick descent during the process of screwing and also the fact that it will not come out.

4 - Wiring the DVC subwoofer was tricky, there are two pairs of terminals on both side of the subwoofer, I wire the + to + and - to - on both side and then we wired the + on one side to the box terminal positive and the - on the other side to the box terminal negative.

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

With that said, this installation went fairly smooth tbh, the subwoofer is securely in the box, the grilled is securely attached the box and all connection are/should be secure and still connected within the box and the super/wood glue should be dry now and the box terminal should be in good shape.

My friend had to leave around this time so we actually had to go back through all that we did concerning upgrading the electrical system that was unfinished and get the truck drivable to move it back to the garage.

There was an issue where the positive and negative terminals(old ones) weren't very secure to the battery that delayed this quite a bit. But after he left, I solved this issue and picked up where we left.

Here am I seeing how well both amplifier will be sitting and sorta getting an idea on how they will sit once the actual amplifiers are in the truck.

I cut off the old terminals attached to the stock wiring and rewired them to the new KnuKonceptz terminals. This was sorta difficult but there is nothing moving that wire from those terminals, they are SECURE.

I decided to postpone the Big 3 installation until tomorrow or this weekend, in this picture i believe I was getting the wire prepped for the power wire going to the distribution blocks in the cab(not there yet). I was probably measuring the wire for the fuseholder.

Ok, I got the power wire in the positive battery terminal and I have split-loomed and electrical taped it. By the way, before my friend left he did complete a wire from the alternator positive to the relay switch positive with the 0/1 awg wire and techflex.

After he left i took the techflex and tucked it under the rubber connector ring's insulation to make it look neater and it will not be replacing but actually be added on the already alternator positive to relay switch positive wire. I also found a place on the frame of the vehicle for the battery negative to chassis connection and I will be making the chassis to engine block connection on the manifold.

That aside I just realized I got to fuse the alternator + to battery + wire. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

Yeah I moved the truck.

Finally got the fuseholder installed(its dark) and I have snaked the wire on the other side of the fuseholder through the grommet previously used by the previous power cable into the cab of the truck.

This is a pic of the fuseholder and cable. I have two beefs here.

1 - The fuseholder isn't very 0/1 awg friendly and I had to do alot of shaving to get the wire to fit in there decently and even then there is a little bit of exposed wire from outer bit of wire being pushed back, you can see in that picture, it isn't much but I hate exposed wire.

2 - My other beef is the actual fuse connections, they seem to be for an allen wrench to tighten, unfortunately I have no allen wrench that will fit it and I have an allen wrench set. So I had to use a wrench to sorta tighten it, which it appears to be tight and secure I'm a little iffy about keeping it like that.

This time Im actually routing the RCA's on seperate sides of the truck, RCA's on the right and power-gnd-rem on the left. The RCA's are also zip-tied to existing wires underneath the door seal to keep them from sliding or moving out of place.

So heres been the problems so far:

- A few issues one finding the wires for the Big 3, seems like there is more-so a Big 7-8?.

- Those few issues I listed concerning box, most of those should be cleared except the screw which may not be in the wood, thats kinda has me a little worried.

- The fuseholder issues concerning the fuse may not be tight enough in there and no allen wrench to properly tighten it.

-----------------------------------------------------

Here is what I need to get done tomorrow or this weekend.

- I need to split-loom electrical tape the wire coming from the fuseholder and into the cab.

- Need to do some wire management on the engine compartment underneath neon light kit wires.

- I need to try and better secure the fuse in the fuseholder.

- Look into purchasing a manifold nut for my truck to secure the big 3 cord going from the chassis ground to the manifold.

- Fuse the battery positive to alternator positive 0/1 awg wire(if i really have to)

- Finish the Big 3 and straighten up all wiring in the engine compartment.

- Modify previous ground for 0/1 awg wire.

- Place all power and ground wire where it needs to be in the amplifier spots, also do the same with subwoofer speaker wiring.

- Re-Install the floor, install amplifiers and distribution blocks and route wires up through pre-placed holes.

- Install amplifier remote controls onto the middle dash panel with wiring going through the carpet.

- Get ready to the install the box(Panel and wall cutting)

- Fit box, reconnect negative and positive on the battery securely and make sure all big 3 and electrical connections are secure.

- Wire up the speakers/ subwoofers to the amplifiers.

- Get ready to set the gains and other settings on the amplifier.

- Install the box and hook up the subwoofer speaker wire to the box terminals on the outside.

- Make sure each component is getting proper voltage after the the positive and negative are reconnected.

- if voltage is correct, turn on radio, set gains, make sure all works well and if all does, get everything ready for the seats to go back in.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Next week we will begin to install and new component set and the deadening whatnots, hopefully.

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

Began routing the wire into the cab and underneath the door seal. Zip tied to an existing mechanic there.

In this pic you can see where the power cable actually enters the cab through the grommet underneath the driver's floorboard.

I need to actually finish electrical taping that small bit there.

The power cable and fuseholder has been mounted and electrical taped and split-loomed.

The KnuKonceptz battery terminal has been reconnected to the battery with the stock wiring and the audio system 0/1 awg hooked up to it.

I would like to say, the KnuKonceptz In-Line ANL fuseholder is a pain in the ass to install. It really is, you actually have to shave and cut down the wire in the 0/1 awg to get a secure fit into it and no allen wrench I have fits the screw holding the ANL fuse down.

I believe the one under the hood is fairly secured, I really hope it is tbh.

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

Quick Update

After worrying myself to death about that hood fuseholder I decided to reconnect the battery negative and read the voltage with the DMM coming on the battery than on the other side of the fuseholder.

Both readings shown 15.5v.

 

[snfsh79077 10+ year member]

I thought ford had changed the upper intake to plastic in 99....guess not. If you ever decide on exhaust for the 6er I have one of the best Ive heard, my friends think so also...I have it on youtube.

I would really like to come see this once your done...I will be in oxford sometime in the fall for a Lord T and Eloise concert.

cant wait to see pics and vids when its all done.