Tired, close to breaking things.

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

Today was the component system install day for my truck and everything was ready to go.

I was going to hook up my Phoenix Gold Rsd 6.5" component set to my Profile AP1000 2-Channel amplifier. So immediately I removed the door panel of my truck and any/all other parts that needed to be taken off for the wiring. Luckily, Ford conveniently uses high quality plastic clips and pieces which can stand large amounts of abuse to hold their panels in(sarcasm). But it wasn't the first time I have taken the door panels and other parts off and it sure wouldn't be the last.

After the door panels were removed and set aside, we began to cut the wholes into the panel where the tweeters would comfortably sit out of the range of the window roller and where they would not hinder the insertion of the door panel after the components were installed. So after the tweeters were placed in the door panel, and the mdf baffles were bolted into the door to hold the midbass....and the crossover was also mounted in the door panel; it was time to do the wiring to the devices.

Immediately I ran the wire from the amplifier to the crossover and so forth from there running from under the step cover. Everything was wired up and unfortunately unknown to my knowledge, I had wired the polarity wrong due the diagram on the amplifier which confused me. So when I turned the radio on, I was greeted with a nice popping noise from the midbass, a nice little clicking noise from the tweeter and a wonderful burnt smell emitting from the door panel. Immediately I knew what was wrong and quickly re-wired, but the damage had already been done though the tweeter began to work properly(to an extent), the midbass voice coil had been fried. So I replaced the burnt woofer with the woofer from the other side, it all sounded fine now with some adjustment with the gain and crossover from the amplifier.

Unfortunately my dilemma consisted in replacing the midbass and that would solve the problem right? Unfortunately more problems appeared, besides the difficulties in placing some of the plastic panel pieces back into the truck, when I tried to put the other door panel on, I discovered that my measurements were off and that the screw holding the spring in the tweeter conflicted with the metal frame of the door panel which rendered the door panel unable to go on the frame. Great....

Dilemma number 2, which would honestly just call for a shorter screw and hopefully, though not positive, that might solve that dilemma, so I turn the HU on once again. But instead of the nice actual sound that came from the tweeter and midbass last night, I was greeted by a high-pitch squeal.

Between the difficulty of getting some of the pieces back on the vehicle, the continous tweeter and midbass problems, and the problem concerning the tweeter placement on the other door panel. I am this close to taking a sledge hammer to the vehicle and system entirely, and sad thing is....the actual change in performance from wrecking the whole ordeal would not differ from the current performance Im getting out of it now.

Any tips, ffs just someone help me. -.-

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[Pimpdaddyq 10+ year member]

When I got that loud high pitched squeel, my amp was grounding out on metal.. I used a screw to hold it down, and was touching the metal of the car, causing that screaching sound.. not sure if its the same deal though..

Andrew

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

The amplifier is bolted to the frame of the truck...?

 

[nbudros 10+ year member]

Check your wires make sure they are not touching anything they shouldnt be, check your RCAS, check your power and ground wires.

Remeasure and rethink... In my case i am going to have to have the tweets stick out some more because the tweeter grills don't fit right. So just check again.

MY SUGGEST for the future is start with the gain all the way down and everything off, that way if there is a surge or a miss wire its not DEVASTATING... Also you can use a 9 volt touching the pos and neg of the wire leading to your amp to make sure which wires which speaker and so on, and to test to make sure they are hooked up this way not blowing anything.

Its trial an error but your best bet is to take it slow and not throw everything at a speaker at first.

Sorry about your luck.

ALSO VIEW THIS AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

 

[nbudros 10+ year member]

When I got that loud high pitched squeel, my amp was grounding out on metal.. I used a screw to hold it down, and was touching the metal of the car, causing that screaching sound.. not sure if its the same deal though..
Andrew

I would hope your ground was connected to metal... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

Can you get pics of the door panels?....Yeah, door panel installs can be tough,frustrating and very time consuming. I'm going for kick panel pods next time.

Here is my build log. Maybe you can get some ideas from it.

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=248366

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

I would hope your ground was connected to metal... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

Actually he was quite right and that solved the squealing dilemma.

Other things to solve:

Mid-bass woofer on the right is lopsided a tad.

Tweeter problem(Somehow I need to get that screw out and replace it with a much shorter one. Or do without the spring completely and hope the tweeter just wont pop out forward)

Getting a new woofer, maybe PG will sell me just the woofer?

Getting the step-cover and etc fastened down nicely.

and pictures coming soon.

Good thing this learning experience is on a crappy 99' fl150 and not a new vehicle.

 

[Twistid 5,000+ posts]

Actually he was quite right and that solved the squealing dilemma.
Other things to solve:

Mid-bass woofer on the right is lopsided a tad.

Tweeter problem(Somehow I need to get that screw out and replace it with a much shorter one. Or do without the spring completely and hope the tweeter just wont pop out forward)

Getting a new woofer, maybe PG will sell me just the woofer?

Getting the step-cover and etc fastened down nicely.

and pictures coming soon.

Good thing this learning experience is on a crappy 99' fl150 and not a new vehicle.

I would hope your ground was connected to metal... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

huh??? your ground is supposed to be bolted to bare metal... what did you do ground it to some carpet or something?? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/uhoh.gif.c07307dd22ee7e63e22fc8e9c614d1fd.gif

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

huh??? your ground is supposed to be bolted to bare metal... what did you do ground it to some carpet or something?? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/uhoh.gif.c07307dd22ee7e63e22fc8e9c614d1fd.gif

The ground is bolted the metal, its just that the amplifier was bolted to metal aswell....to keep it from moving(which wasnt an issue anyways), so it was grounding out through the bolt that was holding it down, but I took the bolts out and theres no more squealing.

 

[Brian_smith06 10+ year member]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/compcrash.gif.4ecfedd515e492755e2899769e83940b.gif

 

[Trepkos 10+ year member]

Pictures:

Tweeter In The Door Panel(The one that won't fit)

-Tried to find a position which was close to the head and flat for the flush mount and also out of the range of the window roller-upper thingie.

The other side of the tweeter in that door panel, you can see the screw that I think is disallowing the door panel to set properly aswell as the spring which keeps the tweeter from popping out forward. Now the worse option would be to remove both the spring and screw. Either that was the most ideal location in the door panel and removing the tweeter entirely would leave a fairly decent size hole. -.-

Baffle picture, the baffle may be cut a little off a bit, and this may be the reason the lopsidedness of the midbass but after they were cut, the speaker seemed to sit comfortably in them. Basically to be more indepth with the lopsideness, it wasnt originally off-balance until we took the original burnt woofer out which sat perfectly and we put the other woofer in, in which case...the screw wouldn't catch the mdf and just wasn't screwed down and for some reason the PG package didnt include enough screw so the whole lower right side of the woofer isn't screwed to baffle making it slightly off-balance....Pics of this will be shown soon when I have time to take the panel off and it will stop raining. -.-

Right side tweeter pictures.

Oh yeah and the wonderful parts and pieces that just wont lie down right. -.-

The wiring will be hid under the floor eventually.

Another problem is this conveniently placed metal plate over the wire conduit going to the door from the driver side of the truck.

 

[djman37 5,000+ posts]

in the last pic, the black seal usually runs over the plastic, like in the piece right above it.

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

The ground is bolted the metal, its just that the amplifier was bolted to metal aswell....to keep it from moving(which wasnt an issue anyways), so it was grounding out through the bolt that was holding it down, but I took the bolts out and theres no more squealing.

So problem solved? What was grounding?

 

[AcidicDreams 10+ year member]

So are the tweeters in different spots on the doors between left and right? And a dremel or something metal granding can fix that bolt's length.

Also if you want to find a shorter one just go to a hardware store. They will have an aisle that is nothing but nuts and bolts and you should be able to find a match that is shorter...

 

[HellsRise 10+ year member]

Suggestion: Pay attention to how things were when you take them apart...that way you can put them back together properly.