Proper wiring is NOT that hard...

[linuxman2003]

Well! This weekend I decided I would check to see how butchered the wiring was on the stereo of my new car, since the previous owner had somewhow wired all 6 speakers in the car to run off of ONE channel on a 50 watt amp that was stuffed under the drivers seat... that was a sign that it would be bad. and, it was. very, very bad. get this - the illumination wire that is supposed to dim the radio face when the headlights are on, was wired to the radios accessorie wire (or ignition on wire) so anytime the headlights were turned on, the radio would work, the highs from the radio were never hooked up to begin with, the signal wire for the power antenna was wired to GOD knows how many extra wires... (that I still dont know what they go to). On top of that, something in the radio (ancient pioneer, built in '93) shorted out and kept blowing the fuse to my taillights and dash lights... the GOOD news is, I got it all sorted out, the speakers are all wired up right, the lights all work right now, the wiring is nice and clean, no blown fuses...............and now the radio is dead as a rock. D'OH! I guess the thing that -REALLY- gets me... is that it is NOT that hard to wire a radio properly!!! WHY do people have such a hard time doing things right?!

I'm planning on getting me a kenwood deck from best buy probably thursday or friday of this week anyway, I'll just let them deal with the re-install now that I got the wiring fixed.

 

[Ozwynn]

maybe you got lucky and he hacked the harness between the radio and the plug. That happened with my saturn and I got lucky. I had a dodge dakota and I didn't get so lucky.

its to the point now I refuse to buy a car that doesn't ave the factory radio installed unless they can prove the wiring wasn't hacked.

 

[RobbieD]

Good job, Linuxman. No, wiring isn't hard, it just takes patience and knowing the basics before you dive into it. From the sound of it, you did quite a professional clean-up on an all-too-common hack job.

How's that Honda doing for you? It's a sharp-looking ride, for sure.

 

[linuxman2003]

How's that Honda doing for you? It's a sharp-looking ride, for sure.

Compared to the ranger? like a night and day difference. This morning coming in to work I glanced down once and I was just under 100 heh. I guess I got used to the ranger buzzing along at 3200 rpms at 70... so I'm used to running high RPM's... good thing this car has cruise control

Sadly, the wiring harness that they cut into is, in fact, on the cars harness. Instead of doing it the super easy way of buying an adapter plug with color coded wires (something a freakin trained monkey can do) they said "hey! ya know what? lets chop up the harness thats in the car! yeah! thats a great idea!" At least it was fix-able...

 

[almostclueless]

Some folks with less than dB competition aspirations also try to make power connections with K-mart super cheap speaker wire for their higher power stuff.....



Folks just dont try to understand electricity, and somehow miss that anything in the instructions must be there for a reason....

 

[Natedog]

....I'm planning on getting me a kenwood deck from best buy probably thursday or friday of this week anyway, I'll just let them deal with the re-install now that I got the wiring fixed.

I'd do it yourself if you want it done right...most those installers are hacks too from what I've seen. Just not as bad as whoever did yours.

 

[linuxman2003]

I'd do it yourself if you want it done right...most those installers are hacks too from what I've seen. Just not as bad as whoever did yours.

I thought about it... but, the installation is free and if they do anything wrong I can always just take it back and complain to a manager until its done right... getting down to the wiring for the radio in that car is a major pain, on the ranger I could just take off the whole bezel around the ac controls and have a huge hole to work in, with the car you have to get the wire dykes into the single DIN hole to crimp everything... I already did it once! I'll let someone else have that pleasure the next time

 

[MAKG]

Yes, when I install my own stereos, I always make an adapter cable to factory connectors, using solder and heat-shrink. The main reason is that I don't like to solder in the vehicle if I can avoid it (it's asking for a burn), but it also makes for pretty clean connections.

You can get the adapter connectors at a good stereo store, for around $15-$20.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I enjoy radio installs, but it sure isn't fun to sort out someones mess, my Ranger is full of them under the hood.

Only problem I have had with a radio install was my first one was after all the wires were spoken for I assumed the lone unpowered blue one left was ground, it was really to light up the stock radio. I blew a fuse whenever I had the lights and the radio on at the same time until I figured it out, and have never been able to dim my dash lights since (I think it messed up my lightswitch). The the plug in kits don't go back that old, my stock radio just had a couple wires going out under the dash. My Laser was a cakewalk with the plug in kit after I convinced the guy at Best Buy it took the Mitsubishi adapter and not the Chrysler one.

 

[stegomon]

i have installed a few radios...and i refuse to splice into the factory harness...get that adapter from the radio on...becouse you never know if you are going to put the stock radio in

 

[Psychopete]

WHY do people have such a hard time doing things right?!

Simply because they don't know what they're doing. The guy who had my car before me was a complete idoit. I didn't notice until after I pulled the engine out, that the motor mounts were simply fastened with 2 self tapping bolts per mount. Don't even get me started on the exhaust. The shifter is pretty neat though, he made a floor shifter out of a gun handle, but it very dangous since there's no reverse lock out.

I found that basically most of the wiring behind the dash of my '85 Grand Prix was "re-done". I found that it had 2 dash speakers, 2 door speakers, and 2 rear speakers, but only 4 channels from the deck. I had to replace the cd player (junk), and could only find 4 of 6. There's a point to where you just have to say F it, at that point I was looking at ripping out the interior to get the speakers wired right. I ended up hooking up what I could and calling it a day. Can't hear the radio over the Pete Jackson gear drive, anyway .

I didn't throughly inspect it as good as I should have. I was hurting for a car, and $700 sounded okay at that point. 3 months later the engine developed a tap (probably from me just beating the hell out of the SBC 262, which btw only went 98mph @ 5,500 RPM TOPS). I got my @$$ handed to me by a bone stock 4.6L T-Bird =/ that wasn't even running right. But it's got a solid rebuild 327 in it now, and now I am looking to sell it to get back on track with my Ranger. I thought about buying an '07 off the lot, but then I thought about how much more I'd like my '88 dumping that kind of money into it...

Pete

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So far I've fixed hack wiring jobs on three of my BIIs, and helped a buddy fix hack wiring jobs on two of his cars....

It really isn't that hard to do good wiring, but people seem to have serious issues with trying to do it for the most part. It always pisses me off...

I wouldn't trust Best Try or Circuit City to install one. My buddy's one car pretty much caught fire because of one of their wiring jobs, they screwed up the battery terminals among other things. When he complained to the manager they told him that there was nothing wrong with their wiring job and that he must have changed something on his own. Never mind that the smoke started coming out of the wires before he got it out of their parking lot. No thanks, I'd rather deal with the frustration of installing it on my own.

 

[Simple_serf]

Yup...People are freakin geniuses.

My ranger was hacked up, I paid one of the local sound shops to sort it out. I have to deal with other people screwing things up at work, so I just didn't feel like dealing with it. i went with another pioneer, I have had good luck with them, and othern than the ocassional CD getting stuck (easy fix...take off the faceplate, hit the littl ebutton, put faceplate back on, hit eject), i am happy with it.

Now the hack job on my camper though........ It's downright scary.

 

[skippy]

my 83 xlt is factory original(unmolested)till i inherited it from my uncle,through my dad.i,ve kept it pretty much that way.still has factory am/fm radio,which works very well.however all the good radio stations in atlanta have sold out and play crap now so i,ve installed used cd player under dash with duct straps,wire ties and put some speakers behind the seat,works good,cd,s don,t skip and the wiring is tidy and secure.over the years many friends have exclaimed that they were the gods of radio install,do it yourself!now,where did i leave my thin lizzy live cd.

 

[almostclueless]

Thin Lizzy rules......love John Sykes guitar playing!!