Quick question..

[m4dioses 10+ year member]

I'm installing an aftermarket HU into my wife's 1996 Explorer XLT and have had a hell of a time with wiring harnesses and diagrams regarding the speaker wires. I've tried both the premium harness and regular harness. I've also hardwired (cut, spliced & crimped) the head-unit speaker wires to the speaker wires coming from the dash with no result. Can I just run brand new 14GA speaker wire from the aftermarket harness, drop it under the dash and run it through the floors to the back door and through the panels to the front doors?

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[AnthonyO 10+ year member]

This is the kit you used

Metra 71-5600

 

[m4dioses 10+ year member]

Yessir, I tried the 71-5600 and the Scosche premium kit - both produced no sound so I chopped off the black molex in the dash and tried to hard wire the aftermarket harness to no avail. I no longer have the black molex connector in-tact in the dash so I was wondering if now instead of wiring to the wires inside the dash I could run 4 sets of 14GA speaker wire right from the harness to the speakers that are in the door.

I read on an Explorer forum that the issue was because the wires in the dash are actually amp return signal wires and I have to get an amp bypass kit which is like $30 and just about the same amount of headache if I were to drop and run new wire sets.. but is it possible to drop and run wires right from the headunit harness to speakers? I've only installed head units two ways before - harnesses and hardwiring.. never ran my own speaker wire so I wasn't sure if it would work.

Any help would be appreciated. : )

EDIT: The Scosche kit is the FD02B..

 

[m4dioses 10+ year member]

Well I can't seem to get an answer to this question anywhere so I guess I'll just hook up some components I have and see if they play after wiring in the 12v lines haha.

 

[West]

Sorry we couldn't help... haven't seen that issue before.

Did you cut out the harness that was hard wired into the car?

Even if the explorer has a factory amp, you should still be able to install an aftermarket head unit, you need to install the amp turn on switch to the head unit.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

The factory amp plays a key role. it needs to get a turn-on signal to function. Assuming the head unit wires feed signals to the amp which powers the speakers (typical).

Before you began, you should have gotten a wiring diagram of the audio system so you knew the routing.

Most likely, you haven't given the factory amp power or turn-on, and that is why you didn't have sound.

Even if the factory amp fed through the HU harness, you would have twice as many wires there and you would only connect to half of them.