stereo wiring help

[DIESELNV]

I'm putting in a new stereo. The quick wiring harness that I got with it does not seem to match. There's no front speaker sound. The front speakers work and the front outputs work (tried with rear speakers) but nothing with harness. So I'm splicing to the factory wires but still can't get the front to work. Is it the tweeters or crossover. Can someone give me the correct wires to connect or colors. Please help, I've done lots of stereos before but I can't figure this out. I'm going nuts! Thanks.

 

[B.G. Smith]

Wires

The wire to rt. door speaker is DB/RD and VT. For left door it is BR/RD and DG. If you had the premium system with tweeters the speaker wiring goes through an amplifier which is powered up from the radio, that might be your problem. The wire colors are from 99 manual. bg

 

[DIESELNV]

Thanks B. G. I do have the tweeters. The wire colors you gave me are correct for mine and match the harness I was given, but nothing when I hook them up. I know lots of you have aftermarket stereos, how did you hook yours up? Thanks for any help.

 

[B.G. Smith]

Wiring

Best I can tell from the witing diag. ( I have hard time making heads or tails of these) the hot wire that feeds the speaker amplifiers is DG/RD and is turned on by a relay that is powered off the power antenni or the wire that would power the ant. if you had one. That wire is 22 ga. LG. Sorry I could'nt be of some help. bg

 

[nwinters]

The front speakers on your truck have a built in amplifier, they require power to run them. On the stock system they are powered when the radio comes on.

Check the wiring diagram out on this site, it refers to pin G as a power antenna lead. It will send out power to turn on the speaker amps when the radio turns on. Hook this up and you should be all set.



<a href="http://www.installdr.com/Harnesses/DCP-Wiring.pdf" target="_blank"><b>Radio connector wiring diagrams</b></a>



Let me know how it goes.



Nate

 

[DIESELNV]

Nate, you were right on about that wire. Thanks, you saved me. Quick and easy too. But I have a new problem. My right door speaker has been going on and off recently. Now it went out for good. I pulled off the door pannel and speaker and the connections are good. Can someone tell me where the other connections are or where to check? Also where do you get those Christmas tree door pannel things?

 

[hammong]

If you have the premium sound radio (with the tweeters), then you also have the supplemental amplifier inside the dash. If your new head unit has high-power output (eg: more than 12 watts per channel) -- you may want to consider running new speaker wire from the head unit to your existing speaker locations.



I know this is not a minor task, but it's not that bad either. If you choose to use the auxillary amplifier, you will not be able to take advantage of the high-power output of your new head unit. Worse yet, the high-output of your new head will more than likely overdrive the amplifier inputs, and you'll get distortion from the input stage of the auxillary amp. So much for better sound, eh?



Greg

 

[nwinters]

Glad to hear you got it working. I have never actually used the stock speakers with a different head unit, I replaced my speakers at the same time. My right side front was cutting out as well and I just replaced them with some 6" seperates. I don't think there is another amp behind the dash like hammong said, on mine the amps were part of the 6x9 door speaker.

When wiring regular speakers, there are 6 wires in the door going into the speaker; 2 go up to the tweeters, 2 come in as speaker +- and 2 are power for the builtin amp. I put my crossovers in the door as all the wiring for the tweeter and woofer is in the door. Just leave out the power for the stock amps, run the input into the crossover and the output to the tweeter & woofer. I posted the wire color for all the wires in the door going into the amp, search for a post by me and it should come up, if you can't, message me I will try to find it.



The rear speakers are pretty easy, they don't have any tricky stuff going on. Actually, the stock rears in mine handled power pretty well without distorting. I did replace them with new speakers that match my fronts. I did have a filter in the amp filtering out the bass.



My system is:

Alpine 7939 AI-Net Head

6 disk AI-Net changer

Phoenix Gold M44 (4x40w) powering the 4 speakers

Phoenix Gold M50 (1x200w) powering Sub

MB Quart 218. 03CX Front 6-1/2 separates

MB Quart 215. 03CX Rear 5-1/4 separates

JL center seat cusion 12" sub





I don't know about where to get the door christmas tree things.



Good luck

 

[DIESELNV]

I am going to try and keep my stock speakers and wiring for now. If I have to I'll run new speaker wire, but I would like to find out what my problem is and fix it first. Thanks for all the info. Sounds like a nice system Nate, maybe someday.

 

[Idaho CTD]

Door fasteners

You can get them from Dodge at about 1. 00+ each or find a fastener supplier in the yellow pages and pay about . 35 each. There are a buch of them and I changed out my speaker in both my trucks so I bought 200 at once.



Nathan

 

[B-52]

I understand you are replacing your head unit, right?



As Nate pointed out, there are amps in the doors mounted to the speakers. If you are trying to use the amplification in your new head unit to drive the stock speakers, you will need to pull the front door panels and actually modify the wiring physically at each speaker to bypass the stock speaker-mounted amps.