I need your help please...

[Jimmy G]

Hello to all,

I am a complete novice to sound system wiring, so please forgive me if my questions aren't clear. I will do the best I can.  

My wife and I were given a 2007 Winnebago View motor home. It only has 12,000 miles on a Mercedes Benz chassis and the outside looks brand new. However, the inside was used to cook meth and the chemicals destroyed virtually everything electronic in the coach. I have finished replacing every single light fixture and switch and have moved on to the sound system. I need to know if I can change some parts of it or if it is even possible to do what I want to do.

The system had a two-channel crossover, but it was eaten by chemicals. I looked it up online and sort of know what a crossover does. This one had two yellow wires and two white wires coming in to it and had the same coming out. I assume the inputs were coming from the Jensen radio/dvd player (it is 10 feet away and there is a mass of wiring that is all colored the same (yellow and white) all throughout the motor home, so I'm only guessing). The outputs went to two tweeter-looking speakers on two different walls. I assume the crossover was filtering frequencies to these tweeters. There is an inductor in line with the speakers and the crossover. I assume it is a frequency filter but don't really know.

The coach has a dash radio, a coach radio/dvd and a television. The coach speakers can be used with each.

I want to just eliminate the crossover altogether and run sound to two 5x8 JBL full-range car speakers. I will put one in the old space near the floor (see photos) and the other will replace the tweeter in the third photo. (I have room to do this on just one of the tweeters. I will eliminate the other entirely.) How would I go about this? Can I just splice and solder the input wires that fed into the crossover to the output wires, eliminating the crossover altogether? Would this then provide the full range of sounds to the speakers I want to install? And if I can do this, do I leave the inductor in place or do I remove it also? Did the inductor have something to do with the crossover or would it be there even if no crossover had been in the coach? If the inductor comes out, what do I do with the wires that connect to it?

Photo 1 is the entire wiring assembly. Do I need to track down where the two sets of inputs to the crossover come from or does it matter? Could I just take one set of them and splice it into the one set of corresponding tweeter wires that I want to hook to the JBL speaker (Photo 30, and then just cap off the other set that would go to the tweeter that I want to eliminate (Photo 4)? Photo 2 shows the assembly and where the old speaker (I have no idea what it was, maybe full-range, maybe a sub woofer) used to be. It was missing in action. Photo 3 is the tweeter where I will install the new JBL speaker, and photo 4 is the tweeter that will be eliminated. 

Sorry if this is confusing or vague. I am just guessing as to what is what and what I can do here. If none of this makes sense, please let me know and I will try to post it again with a better explanation. Any help is appreciated and I thank you all in advance.

Jimmy G 

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[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

Interesting scenario. 

You can bypass the crossovers and run full range speakers.  Your primary issue is identifying the wiring.  Motorhomes are always a PITA because the wiring methods appear to be out of a comic book. 

Soldering and heat shrinking your connections to reuse factory wiring is a suitable approach.  You'll need to start labeling them.  To trace wiring like this, I use a DMM and some alligator clips to test for continuity (with speakers and crossovers disconnected).  Once you've identified the wiring you can solder to bypass the crossovers so you have a direct path from the head unit to the new speakers.

 

[Jimmy G]

Thanks so much for the reply. I understand what you are saying and it is good to hear that my plan should work. I went online and found a complete wiring diagram for the motor home. That, and the fact that each wire is clearly labeled (DL, DM, KJ, etc.) should help me trace them down easily.

However......  I didn't want to complicate my initial question, so I didn't show where a 14-pin relay called the "TV/Radio Speaker Switching Relay" had also been destroyed by chemical corrosion. It is inline with the inductor, crossover and speaker wiring. That relay is no longer available for purchase and I can't find a schematic for it, so I bought another built by the same company "Song Chuan" and I will have to install it also. I will have to muddle my way through that. I disassembled the corroded one and sort of have it mapped out I think, but it's definitely going to be a pill trying to match up this new relay with the old one... if it is possible at all. It is what it is. Thanks again keep_hope_alive... you have given me hope.