Dave M

You can see my previous post here.

An update to some of the problems/questions I had before. My power antenna was running (but not in it's correct location) and not receiving anything, not even static. There was a fixed antenna in it's place but obviously wasn't working. I tracked down the wire running from the fixed antenna and found it terminated under the rear passenger seat. Not hooked up to anything. I pulled the head unit out of the dash and found the wire from the power antenna wasn't hooked up either. The plug on the back of the head unit does not fit the plug on the wire, but when I held them together with my hands I got pretty good reception to some stations. Is there an adapter available?

Incidentally, and not surprisingly, the wire harness behind the dash is hacked to hell. If I ever want to go back to stock or change this in some way, I'll probably just have to run all new wiring harnesses.

Second problem was no sound from the rear speakers and sub woofer. I had mentioned I was not a fan of my head unit because the controls were weird and menus were confusing. I was playing around with it some more and found that there were menus within menus I didn't even know existed but in one of those menus is the option to not send power to a sub and rear speakers. this is different and separate from setting balance and fade, apparently. So I adjusted those setting and now I have sound to the sub and sail panel speakers.

This brings up another problem, though. When I plug in the two wires for the sub that were unplugged from the amp, I get a buzzing sound through the speakers when the car is running. when the car is not running, and just in the "on" position, I don't get that buzzing sound. If I unplug the sub wires from the amp, there's no buzzing regardless of whether the car is running or not. The wires were slightly damaged (I posted a pic in the previous thread) but that doesn't explain why I only get the noise while the car is running.

Also, I found the second crossover that people were saying should be there. It was tucked under the carpeting in the hatch and I hadn't even noticed the lump.

I also found a new piece of mystery equipment I hope you guys can identify.

Some new pics.


This is the mystery box. It doesn't look stock to me. It's located behind the dash, directly below the radio/AC equipment.




A pic of the wiring mess behind the dash:




Another (if you look close you can see wires hacked off the stock plugs):




Two crossovers!




Thanks for all your help so far!

DamonZ28

iTrader: (1)

Antennae adapters are required for our cars, you can get them anywhere (Walmart, etc). Sorry, I'm not familiar with the rest of your issues. But glad you're making progress!

xenergyx

iTrader: (3)

omg wow thats terrible ......and too much power wire under your dash too
Id suggesst you disconnect EVERYTHING and start from scratch.....d/c everything thats been taped, butt connected, plugged into that stereo and start fresh cap everything thats on the old factory harness and get away from it ......just so you know whats what ....pics wont help us diagnose whats going on with that im afraid its been butchered.......



if you want to do it the hard way and go back with the factory for starters you need a new plug so id go on ebay or the junkyard(preferred method) find an old 98+ junked T/A closer to your model the better and get the plug and cut it off its wire harness make sure you have an ample amount maybe abt 6 inches or more cause youll need to splice it back on to the old and than match the wires color to color.

As for the box my first instinct since its so close for the driver to reach it (equalizer) than so much power wire might be a distribution fuse block) or the brain of a security system most likely a viper look kinda large in the pic ....or maybe a smaller amp (dumb place for it ) ...If your car is stock mostly id pull it out and look at the back of it carefully see for any ID marks beside the size of the mounting screw

Daniel Richards

iTrader: (1)

Your mystery box is likely the XM Radio unit, if the radio says "XM Ready" and you have XM radio then I would put money on it, "XM ready" headunits require an add on module to have XM, depending on the exact model number of the headunit, this box could potentially also be a navigation add-on, a bluetooth add-on or a HD Radio add-on, but in your case I'll bet it to be the XM add-on.

replace the RCA's that are damaged and when you run them make sure they DON'T run down the same side of the car the amp power wires do, this is usually the cause of the "ground loop" that you experience as a hiss when the car is running. Cheap RCA's are not insulated very well and will pickup noise from the power wire.

WhiteBird00

iTrader: (4)

Good analysis Daniel. That black box is indeed an XM adapter - you can see the micro-coaxial antenna cable with its yellow connector on the left side.

Metra makes a harness adapter that lets you repair the factory radio harness when the original connector has been hacked off. It's part number 71-1858.