Got up this morning planning on finding out why half my speakers didn't work and then installing the 89 factory radio I got a while back.

Well I ended up cutting out all of the crap the PO put in for that busted Kenwood that was in there. I also threw the Kenwood into the trash. Rebuilt the entire loom for the radio and installed the factory one, didn't work. Pulled the factory one out and istalled an after market that the neighbor gave me, didn't work either. Went into the trash and pulled the KW back out, wired it back in correctly and after redoing a couple of sets of wire for the speakers it all works...... *sigh*. 4 hours of cut/crimp/meter/crimp/meter/cut/tape/recut etc and the radio that I wanted to get rid of is the only one that worked.

Oh well. At least now all the speakers work and I can listen to some tunes without all the crackling and noise that I had before. Oh and while I was in the panel on the drivers side rear I went ahead and jumpered the safety switch for the rear window, it was broken anyway.

 

I'm guessing one of the speakers was grounding out or was grounding with another speaker's ground?

 

When it was all said and done the wires on two of the speakers were all bent at the connections and touching, one speaker didn't have any wires at all since the PO cut the wires and used them to tie up the little pull knob for the fuel door. The knob bracket was a little loose and all it took was 5 seconds to fix. The only speakers that were working was one little 6 1/2 in the back passenger side and this stupid boom cannon base tube thing bolted down in the rear, both of them made terrible noises with any volume at all.

The boom tube is sitting on the shelf along with a CD changer thing while I decide if I should reuse them or take them out and shoot them.

 

Buy a decent head unit, (1 that you know works!) decent speakers all the way around, and blow up the rest! Thats what I would do

 

and try to not run things in parallel- if the head unit has front and rear speaker outputs as well as front and rear amp (RCA) outputs, don't run speakers on the front as well as an amp, etc. don't use amp / low level (RCA) outputs if you're using speaker outs as well.

 

was that you that bought the vintage radio that "worked"?

i hope not

As for my sound system, I have better sound out of my computer than my truck, but hey, its better than listening to all those weird sounds it makes driving down the road, and its way fun to drive to techno or whatever I want to listen to.

 

is that boom tube a bazooka? if it's a decent one those can actually sound pretty nice. i have an 8" one of those in mine running off a 250w amp, it's just enough to round out the sound. & after throwing it in i was finally able to crank up the volume without the back speakers distorting like crazy trying to keep up with the bass.

good to see that you got most of your problems finally sorted, though!

 

Yup that was me. I was so happy to have that thing and it killed me when it didn't work. No harm done, I was lucky enough to purchase it just for shipping charges.

It's a Kenwood thing, 8" speaker and internal amp wrapped up in a tube with a flat bottom. I don't want to mount it anywhere since my cargo area is all going to be used for actual cargo. I mught be able to pull one of the rear panels and install the speaker and amp in there once I get the tube pulled apart and see what all is in there.

For the time being though I can listen to my stations with no strange noise and can even turn it up enough to hear it when I running down the highway.

 

Ricky,

I just replaced the the factory radio in my 92. It's the double DIN style with a radio on top and cassette player below. I know the radio part worked, not sure on the cassette.

If you are interested you can have it. I could sell it (yeah right) but I will just throw it away if you don't want it.

Once again it's just taking up space in my garage.

Robb

 

just go on craigslist and look at radios, get nice ones pretty cheap.

 

Robb go ahead and toss it. The old beat up Kenwood in there isn't worth anything to a thief so I'll leave it for now, and it works so far. Thanks though.

 

Hey Ricky, when that stereo was pulled, it worked. If it didn't work when it got to you, I'll gladly send you back the shipping charges. Its not right you pay for something and it doesn't work. Sorry to hear about your wiring troubles. Let me know.......

Jason


Scratch that. I already sent the shipping $$$ back. Damn I feel terrible you spent all that time putting it in and it wouldn't fire up for you. By the way, nice pics of the new Runner. Everyone checks out 4Runners that are topless, no one cares too much about jeeps.

 

Jason you didn't have to return the money. It isn't your fault that the radio didn't work. Although I didn't expect this I do thank you for it.

Take care and God Bless.