Hello all, again. I installed a new stereo in my 96 Disco and for some reason I get absolutely no sound of the speakers. I'm thinking I may have to wire the new radio directly to the stock amp, but I am having trouble locating that. Any help out there? Thanks

Tom

 

You'll be wanting the Electrical Troubleshooting Manual part of the free RAVE download, it has pix, location photos, and cable pin outs.

 

Check for continuity.

Get a multimeter set it to continuity (looks like a sound wave) and make sure that it works [touch both leads together and it should go "beeeeeeeep"]

1) find the front right speaker (+) wire behind the head unit (radio)
2) find the front right speaker (+) wire that is connected to that speaker
3) place the RED lead on point 1
4) place the BLACK lead on point 2
5a) you should hear a beeeeeeeeep
5b) if you don't, you may have mis-wired something or for whatever reason basically those two wires have no contact which is why you have no sound. I would just skip the amp and just lead the wires directly from the speakers to the head unit... a lot easier to manage and deal with later. Plus if you want you can install an aftermarket amp and you don't have to fiddle with old wiring.



REPEAT FOR ALL WIRES AND DO THE (+) AND (-) FOR EACH WIRE

 

Oh and I think your stock amp is behind your glove box. You have to remove that, then remove that leather holding underneath your passenger area (basically under your passenger dash where your feet go) and once you do that it's against the back wall..or it could be under one of your seats is what I hear from previous post..

 

I have to remove the amp completely? What if I have a PAC SOEM-4? (its a device that is supposed to hook up to the amp, then the speakers coming off the new wiring harness)

 

No haha, instead of running:

Head Unit -> Amp -> Speakers

you just hook it up:

Head Unit -> Speakers

You will need new speaker wire (about $10 for a roll) and the ability to make sure you keep the (+) & (-) connections of a speaker to the corresponding wire on your new headunit without mixing them up. Easily done since most speaker wire has different coating for each wire for the (+) and (-) a.k.a [POLARITY]

 

Ok I think I gotcha. So I need to remove the speaker wires from the amp, or just clip the speaker wires that plug into the factory harness? Then run those wires straight to the head unit?

 

Doesn't matter what you do with anything regarding the amp. Rip that S.O.B. Out all together. Caleb is right. Run the speaker wire from the back of the headunit harness to all the speakers. That unpowered head unit to amp to Speaker combo is garbage. Instead of trying to find all the right connections just do it yourself. You can use better gauge wire and k you know where everything is. Then come to my house and are my truck for new speakers and a sub.

 

Most headunits now have at least a 20-25 watt continuous power (RMS) power outage. Basically that means you can power 90% of speakers without any problem since most take anywhere from 15-50 watts RMS. Adding an amp is just for more clarity I guess is a simple way to say it.

I would just cut the wires from the amp, pull them out, and just rewire. It's not that difficult, just kind of time consuming because you have to run the wire through the back of the head unit and hide them in the trim of the vehicle to the speakers. Or if you wanted to cheat, at the amp you could cut the input wire (where the head unit goes to the amp) and the output wire (where the amp goes to the speaker) and just connect those two pieces, so you wouldn't have to rewire anything. After you do that just check for continuity. Rememeber you have 8 wires (4 speakers with a (+) wire and a (-) wire). Oh and since you have a new head unit don't forget to attach some RCA cables so you can use it with your amp and sub later if you decide. Might as well since you are doing all of this :]

 

Ok great, thanks for the help guys. Just one more question. Where exactly is the amp located? I think I may have found it but there is only one plug going into it, and nothing coming out. It doesn't make any sense