Dave M

UPDATE: See post #14 for updated pics and information.

I recently bought my car and it has an aftermarket system installed. I'm 99% sure when I bought it the rear speakers and the subwoofer, which is installed in the hatch, worked. Right now I'm only getting sound from the front speakers. I don't know anything about stereos and this system looks like it's a mess. I don't know where to start looking to fix this. Any ideas or information about this system that anyone can give would be appreciated. Things I can tell you: There's a 60A fuse under the hood that seems to drive the equipment in the hatch. The stock speakers in the hatch have been disconnected. A subwoofer has been installed along with an amp (at least I think it's an amp).

The rear speakers in the passenger compartment are aftermarket replacement speakers so I'm assuming they are not disconnected and should be working (again, 99% sure they were working when I bought the car). The head unit is aftermarket. When I was pulling off some trim in the hatch area, I also found a weird piece of equipment I've never seen before. I've included a pic below. There is also a mess of wires in the passenger side hatch area, under the trim. The driver's side trim seems to carry thick speaker(?) cable from the front of the car.

I've checked all fuses I can find under the hood and on the equipment in the hatch. Nothing is blown and all electrical connections seems solid. At least the ones I can see. Now for some pictures:


The amp in the hatch:





Beside the amp is mounted something else. I don't know what this is:




Another view of the two. The subwoofer is mounted in the trim just to the right of these:




This is the nest of wires that is on the passenger's side:




This piece of equipment was tucked up in the trim near that nest of wires. For scale, it's about 6" wide. I don't know what this is:




I should also mention the head-unit is a Kenwood.

Does anyone have any information on this equipment? Is it quality stuff? What does the mystery equipment do? Most importantly, any idea as to why the rear speakers and the subwoofer aren't working? I can get more pics if needed.

Daniel Richards

iTrader: (1)

OK, quick and dirty, what you have is a 5 Channel amp, the box right next to it is a 2 Farad CAPACITOR (truthfully not worth the money they cost and your mystery box is a crossover for a component speaker (one pair of wires from the amp on the input going with one pair out to the 6.5" and the other pair out to the tweeter.

something that jumps out at me right away is your bottom set of RCA's (light blue with black tape under capacitor) is unplugged from the amp, try plugging them back in as whatever channels those RCA's serve aren't getting sound.

as for the wiring mess, it looks like the PO went the lazy *** route and simply cut the harness off the factory amp (the big mess of wires) and spliced in the wires from the new amp to those wires instead of doing a full rewire.

Edit: just googled the amp model number, the RCA's that are disconnected should be running the sub (assuming he wired it properly). Also for what it's worth I have no Idea why he would do this, that amp is no more powerful then the stock one he removed.

Dave M

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll try plugging those cables in and seeing if I get some sound out of the sub.

Some other issues I'm having: the head-unit is set up with an XM receiver and it looks like the old AM/FM antenna has been completely disconnected. There is no antenna on the car and the motor that should raise and lower it has been dismounted, but I can hear it running when I turn the car on/off. Needless to say I don't get any radio reception. I'd much prefer to have AM/FM radio instead of XM. I guess I'm going to have to rip the head-unit out to see what they have going on in there? Hopefully I can get the antenna motor hooked back up, since I can hear it running.

Daniel Richards

iTrader: (1)

if you can hear the antenna motor back there turning and the antenna doesn't go up or down then the antenna is BROKEN, there is nothing to "hook up", the internals of the antenna are jacked.

try running back there while it is "raising" and see if you can pull the mast up, personally I bashed mine down because it was stuck up and was ugly, I get all my music from my tablet.

Dave M

From what I've been able to see, the antenna motor is not connected to what it's supposed to be connected to, it's just kind of laying in the well back there. At least that's what it looks like to me. I'll take some pictures and post them. As I said, I don't know anything about stereos.

xenergyx

iTrader: (3)

K that nest of wires is from the old monsoon amp what was done was he cut the plug off that goes into the amp and wired the speakers directly to the head unit this is done because they dont make a jumper for our cars unfortunately. This is prolly why your rear dont work either because the connections came loose there or because they came loose behind the head unit or because your settings are jacked up on the head unit or because the wires have come loose at the speakers or because the speakers are fried or prolly the more likely of the these is that the lil boxes that say diamond audio are crossovers these sometimes fry aswell. That thick guage wire for the regualr speakers looks like audiopipe 12 guage CCA I beleive good wire if its wired with the right connectors and the ground looks like its from a soundquest kit maybe a 2000watt kit its a 4,2,or 0...depending how they measured from outer diameter or inner. the LED on the capacitor is supposed to read 12V or higher ideally if your into car audio itll read at 14.5 until your cap is full and in which case i think itll hover at a modest 13v or thereabouts .....the pic has some glare i wanna say its reading 14.3......so thats fine. Follow your power wire off the cap it should go straight to the battery along this wire if its done right youll find an inline fuse about 12 to 18 inches from the battery either with a maxi fuse or if it was made from scratch and designed for power youll find either a mini anl fuse which is prolly 60A or higher and depending on how many fuses the amp has like mine has 2 70s so I use a 150A fuse itll be in a larger box version....look for a box or cylinder labeled tsunami(smoked clear), rockford fosgate(black or dark gray), stinger(clear), soundquest(clear), audiopipe(clear).



Also as a side note take a look at all your rcas since they hook up to a 5 channel amp the regular speakers share power with your sub ........which coulda had to much power and fried.


And just because they antenna doesnt go up and the motor isnt present-- doest mean its doesnt work it could be not plugged in the back of the head unit because previous owner didnt like his car to look like an rc car

Dave M

That's a lot of good info, thanks. I do have a 60A fuse under the hood, near the battery, but I don't think it had a brand-name on it. The amp itself has two 25A fuses on it. I'll have to snap some pictures of it and my antenna and post them when I get the chance.

This car is just a weekend cruiser with an occasional track day thrown in, and I'm not a big audiophile. Stock would be good enough for me but a little upgrade wouldn't hurt either. This winter I'll probably want to rip this stuff out and either go back to stock or close to it. Maybe have some upgraded speakers, good head unit and a decent amp and that's it.

xenergyx

iTrader: (3)

the fuse wont usually have a brand name unless its stamped on the plastic...your fuse is fine because theirs power to the capacitor atleast....your ground on the amp might have come loose trace it to the mounting point and check if not check the positive to the amp.....than check the volts and the gains on the amp higher the volts louder the audio.....if the power light is on and the protect light is on check the fuses on the amp itself if its good .....move the ground to a better location the best spot and closest is the anchors on the trunk that are used for baby seats or cargo net. If the outcome doesnt change or there is no power light on check the remote wire its solid blue in the back of the head unit and on the amp

What type of head unit do you have?

Dave M

I plugged those two RCA cables into the amp and I got some buzzing from the front speakers (along with the music), but the sub still didn't seem to work. I'm 99% sure those cables were not plugged in when I bought the car, but I'm 75% sure the sub worked when i bought the car. The buzzing stopped when I unplugged the cables. It felt like the cables might be broken under that electrical tape. I didn't have time to remove it to check.

Dave M

It's a Kenwood. I'll get you the exact model tomorrow, I don't remember it off hand.

Daniel Richards

iTrader: (1)

wow, so very much WRONG with this statement.

the "flow" of this setup is this headunit>RCA's>alpine amp>speaker wire off of amp>input of Crossover>output of crossover>Stock wiring to speakers from hacked off monsoon amp harness, you wouldn't feed back to the headunit then to the speakers when the wires running to the speakers are right there.

I highly doubt you would over power and blow any speaker MADE (unless they where still the stock ones) with that amp as it is only rated at like 50 watts RMS on the 4 main speaker channels. 5 channel amps don't output the same wattage to the 5th channel that they do to the other 4

what you need to do is:
1.check those taped rca's (something isn't right there).
2. trace each speaker wire coming out of the amp and make notes of which wires they connect to and report back to us, there should be either 2 or 4 of those crossovers.
3. the bottom most set of speaker wire coming off the amp should go straight to the sub.

where are you located, I would really suggest getting somebody that KNOWS what they are doing to look over it and clean it up some.

Dave M

I'm in Central PA. Looks like I've got some work to do and I'll report back.

TechCam97

iTrader: (5)

Geez, now that's a mess.... Honestly, if it were me I would run out to the local pick and pull yard and find a factory amp and cut the factory harness about 6-8 inches away from the connector. Then just reconnect all of your factory wires to the used harness you just pulled and reinstall the factory monsoon amp and be done with it. The previous owner didn't build an awesome sound system, he built a mobile fire hazard.

Dave M

An update to this post with some new pictures and some answers to some questions and some issues raised. This will be a wall of text and pictures so I apologize and thank you in advance for the help.

As for the capacitor in the hatch, when the car is idling it read about 13.5 volts. When the car is off it read about 11.5 volts.

Regarding my antenna, as I mentioned I can hear the motor spinning when I turn the car on or off. This is the current state of the antenna motor:




And this is the antenna outside of the car (please excuse the dusty car):




This is my head unit and its installation. I don't really like this unit; the controls are cumbersome and hard to use. It's not very intuitive:




A closer view so you can see the model number:




As for the two wires in the hatch that were wrapped in electrical tape and not connected to the amp, they don't run to the subwoofer. They run up the driver's side of the car and past the driver's seat, but that's as far as I can track them. They don't seem to appear under the hood so i assume they go to the head unit. here's a pic with the electrical tape off. It's clear why they had the tape on them:




Speaking of the subwoofer, here's a pic of the overall install, showing the subwoofer:




And a pic of the subwoofer after the cover is off:




The back of the subwoofer enclosure:





The red wire that runs behind the subwoofer also goes up the driver's side and it does go under the hood, to the battery. Under the hood looks like this:




A closer view of the fuse and a remote positive battery terminal. Not sure if that terminal is stock or added as part of the system install:




(Incidentally, when I trip that fuse I lose power to the amp and the capacitor flashes 0.00). To the left of that terminal is another gerry-rigged fuse. Not sure if it's associated with the stereo system but it is wrapped in electrical tape also:




Also under the hood, up closer to the cowl, is another wire spliced in (no tape this time!). Not sure if this is stereo related either, but in this picture you can also see the red power wire appear:





When I take the driver's side trim in the hatch off I find this:




When I pull the carpet back I find this (the connector appears to go to the rear-hatch speakers, which are disconnected on both sides. There is more spliced in wire with electrical tape):




That nest of wires on the passenger side, with the crossover. i have not found any other crossovers hidden anywhere else. As far as I can tell the 4 colored wires run from the crossover into the nest of wires and eventually towards the front of the car. The speaker wire from the crossover runs back towards the amp.




There are also colored wires from that nest that run back toward the amp and are (surprise!) spliced onto speaker wire with electrical tape. I believe the speaker wire (I'm assuming that's speaker wire) terminates on the amp:




And one final picture of the rear passenger compartment speakers. There appears to be 4 wires in the vicinity of this speaker but two are cut and two run to the speaker:




Again, thank you for wading through all this information. I appreciate all the help you guys have already given me. I think what I would like to do is get a decent head unit and go back to nearly stock everything else. Maybe keep the sub if it's not too much trouble but I could lose it and not miss it.

TechCam97

iTrader: (5)

^^^^^^^


Now would be the perfect time to just gut your interior and inspect what all has been done to your poor car. Pull all the seats, interior plastics, and carpet and check everything out (This gives you the added bonus of being able to really deep clean all your interior parts while you're inspecting your wiring). Go to a local pick and pull and get the factory amp and wiring connector with about 8 inches of factory wiring so you can repair your butchered harness. If you aren't comfortable with soldering and shrink wrap, then at least some butt connectors with heat shrink ends will be better than most of that electrical taped nightmare of a rats nest you have there. Then I would hit up www.keeaudio.com and get a speaker package from him. He's a sponsor and he gets rave reviews from lots of people on here and he can help get you sorted out on the hardware side of things. As for your antenna, the gear might be stripped or the plastic wire that pushes / pulls the antenna up and down may have broken. Pull it out and take it apart and see what the issue is and fix it accordingly, or just buy a replacement from someone on here who is parting out their car or get it through a parts store.

Take your time, do your homework, ask questions, and get it fixed correctly the first time. You'll be much more happy!

Daniel Richards

iTrader: (1)

OK, what I would assume is the original antenna was messed up (can you get a well lit close up picture from a few angles of the top of the antenna, hard to tell but from that view it looks like the mast might me missing) and being the cheap *** the PO clearly was he bought some universal fixed antenna, but even the mast for that is missing (the threaded piece on the fender).

you can stop the original motor from making noise by unhooking that 3-wire plug that comes off it (no point in it being plugged up right now anyway) and you can test and see if the other (universal) antenna is whats hooked to the headunit by screwing on a fixed antenna mast to the threaded part on the rear quarter panel and see if you pick up any stations.

DamonZ28

iTrader: (1)

I can't see the pics here at work (they're blocked) but I'll look tonight & see if I can help at all. At any rate, these are the RCA cables, and they run from the head unit to the amp. The speaker wire coming off the amp, will run to the speakers. You should be able to back-trace the wires from the sub to the amp & see if they're connected properly.


This is probably the power wire for the amp. Not a real good idea to have this running right by a speaker or any speaker wire, that's how you get noise in the system (hissing noises when music is quiet). As sloppy as this was, I wouldn't be surprised if there's noise.


More info about this can be found in the Monsoon sticky at the top of the page. The Monsoon speakers have 4 wires, 2 for the woofer & 2 for the tweeter. PO probably just used 2 of the wires & didn't know what to do with the other 2. I believe info on how to use aftermarket speakers with the 4-wire system is also in the sticky, I'm not familiar with the Monsoon myself.

Dave M

I can't get any good pictures of the power mast without taking it off the bracket, which I can do a bit later, but from what I can feel it is broken off at the base. I took a fixed antenna off another of my cars and put it on the TA but there was no change in the "reception" the car got, and the donor car still got reception even with the mast off, so I'd say it' probably not hooked up. There is a thick black wire running from the fixed mast towards the front of the car, though.

Daniel Richards

iTrader: (1)

the speaker in that picture is the sail panel

it has 4 wires because it's a dual voice coil "subwoofer" speaker from the factory but since they replaced it with a 2-way speaker (generally a bad idea on these cars) they left the extra 2 wires disconnected, those should be capped if (especially if there harness was cut off).

replace those bad RCA's, re-run the RCA's so they go up either the middle or the other side of the car then the power cable (RCA's and speaker wire should never be run parallel to power wire if it can be avoided).

i'm still concerned over the lack of a second crossover, the one in the pic is doing the driver door (based on the wiring and reading the monsoon sticky). speakers should come in pairs so there should be a second crossover for the passenger door somewhere.

xenergyx

iTrader: (3)

I can take a pic of the wires spliced together in groups so if you want you can take out the amp?
That way you can get rid of the crappy amp, cap , and sub? and reestblish basic wiring to the speakers than if you want rewire new speakers in on new gauge wire

Than runs something a lil easier on the eyes and pretty basic looking like mine



I have a short clip of mine but it uploaded upside down :/ so this will have to suffice 2 hifonics amps 1500.1 on the left and 600.4 on the right powering 3 diamond audio tx102 dual voice coil 2 ohm wired to 1.333333333 ohms or something like that powering rockford fosgate power series t-165 fronts and t-165-s for the rear

Power wires run down the right all the way behind ecm up and under the hood fuses are within 12-18inches of a single opti red top..
RCAs are separate run down the left along with the bass **** wire and remote wire
All speaker wire to the t165's are 12guage all the way to the back to the cross overs and all wires for the door speakers are run through the rubber umbilical's between the door and frame

Pioneer avh-p8400bh double din
60A mini anl fuse for the 600.1
150A ANL for the 1500.1
TRUE 0 OFC big 3 kit
303A Alternator from ohio gen
All grounds are mounted to the luggage loops well where they used to reside access to the wires are granted by the seat simply folding down

Box is sealed and flush with the rear end