Stereo help

[170Parker]

Hey guys, bringing my B2 question here because I've been searching up and down and nobody has an answer, or if they do its completely different than the previous one. My dad left behind his B2 and I'm trying to rebuild it, I thought I'd pop a radio in first as he never had one, and apparently thats because the PO chopped up the wires. I believe the left set of wires in the dash must have went to the "premium sound amp" (its an 89 XLT) but I cannot locate any speaker wires (besides right at the speaker) and I need to know either how to hook this up, or if I need to hard wire everything myself. Thank you for the help.

 

[RonD]

Well these wiring diagrams only go back to 1990 but Ford didn't change wire colors around too much: http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/radio_wiring_diagrams.shtml

If you have an OHM Meter a pair of speaker wires will show 6 to 8 ohms.
If you can find 1 pair then see which wiring diagram they match, if any

I think I see 8 wires there which would be correct for 2 front and 2 rear speakers

The purple/white stripe wire does match 1990 Premium, as does the White/Green stripe, so if you can find the amp passenger kick panel, you could use it.

You would need a Head unit with Line Level out, no built-in amp.

 

[Mazda]

Does your Bronco II have the Eddie Bauer package?.

The factory amp is located behind the left rear quarter panel. If you don't want to use it you will need to install a bypass jumper. I would not use the old 89 amp. It will sound like crap, especially with today's "digital" media.

I would just get a new head unit and run all new speaker wires to each speaker. It is a little work to do this but well worth it.

Also look at buying your gear from Crutchfield.

http://www.crutchfield.com

Included with your head unit purchase will be around $50.00 in free installation gear that will make the install so much easier and lifetime customer phone support to help you out. I have been buying from them for more than 20 years. Never a problem.

Here is the wiring for your year.



Constant 12V+ Green/Yellow
Switched 12V+ Yellow/Black
Ground Black
Illumination Blue/Red
Dimmer n/a
Antenna Trigger n/a

Left Front (+) Orange/Green
Left Front (-) Black/White
Right Front (+) White/Green
Right Front (-) Black/White

Left Rear (+) Pink/Green
Left Rear (-) Pink/Blue
Right Rear (+) Pink/Blue
Right Rear (-) Green/Orange

You cannot just hook your new head unit to the speaker wires if the bypass plug is not in the amp. Since the op chopped the harness they might have already put the bypass plug in. You will have to get to the amp to make sure. The amp will not have the plug "pluged in".




Bryan

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Mazda pretty much covered it.

Although, I would dig around in the dash to make sure there are no other wires in there. I had an Eddie Bauer packaged 1989 Bronco II that I pulled the radio to do some work and discovered that it had a chopped off wire like that for the "premium" sound but there was also the regular speaker wire plug in the dash. Plugged it in and interestingly enough, it worked. Not sure if that's normal though, probably isn't.

If it was me and I wanted to play with it, I'd probably look for the amp and check things out. Otherwise, I'd just get a roll of 18 gauge speaker wire and run new wires. I never tried really hard to make it overly pretty, I'd just run the wires down through the dash and run them along the underside of the dash, attaching them to keep them out of the way. A lot easier than tearing the dash apart and nobody every knows without sticking their head under there. For the front speakers, I'd fish the wires through the door grommets and into the door. For the rear speakers I'd take the wires over, down through the front kick panels, under the carpet and up behind the trim in the back to the speakers. You'll want to stuff the wire in a loom or wire wrap where it runs under the carpet to keep it from getting damaged. I just took the door sills off to do it. Used some new stainless screws to put the door sill trim back on when I was done.

Of course, I always put in new speakers when I went through the trouble to do all of that. My preference for speakers has always been Pioneer or Rockford Fosgate, FWIW.

If you live anywhere around Western PA, I'd be happy to give you a hand with it sometime.

 

[170Parker]

I bypassed the amp and started working out the speaker wiring using the cut amplifier wiring. Once I finish this I'll post a full diagram incase anyone else runs into this problem. I saw on it across the internet on other forums.