Stereo wiring question

[bad68bowtie]

I've been trying to update the stereo in my truck for about the past six months now, a po put the speakers in the glovebox and installed a worthless tape deck and all other nonsense that I'm working on getting rid of. I got the panels to put 6.5"s down in the kickpanels and a pod for 4" in the dash spot and I have my eye on an Alpine headunit.

I don't know much about wiring up stereos and don't have any experience with them. I'm a little puzzled by the wiring setup thats in there now with the tape deck (the deck is some old Radioshack unit) and how I should go about wiring up the Alpine when I get it. I've got a couple pictures of whats in there now and any examples of what y'all are running and advice as to how I should wire the thing would be awesome.

heres the back of the deck-


and the receiving end that runs into the wiring harness-

[truckdude239]

okay what kind of cd player is it so i can look up color codes and walk you though this but there should be a red wire that is for switched power hook this up to a power souce that is only on with the key on. then there should be i believe a yellow wire this is your wire that need power all the time i just ran mine off the battery. next there should be a black wire which is going to be your ground run this to a ground source. then you will have wire running to your speakers most radios have 4 different out lets for 4 speakers depend on how many you got. find the wires from the front the solid color wire is the pos. and the wire with the black strip is the neg just hook these up to you speakers. then what ever wires you don't use wrap up in tape. and this should get you going.

[shifty]

or give the model number of the stereo - it should be on the chassis somewhere. it's very possible to find a manual online using Google so you know what the wires mean. truckdude is right - there is a universal color code for stereos therse days. example:

yellow = 12v batt constant
red- 12v ignition/acc
black = ground chassis
blue = power antenna
blue with white tracer = amp turn on lead
orange = illumination
orange with black stripe = negative dimmer
orange with white tracer = positive dimmer

this would get you going. front and rear speakers use universal leads also:

2 gray wires (one w/stripe) are always front right-hand speaker
2 white wires (one w/stripe) are always front left-hand speaker
2 purple wires (one w/stripe) are always rear right-hand speaker
2 green wires (one w/stripe) are always rear left-hand speaker

i think that's right. i am not totally "with it" right now.

[shifty]

PS - i used to work at a high-end car stereo install shop back in the day. if you need help or tools to wire your stuff up, i'm right down the road. gimme a PM if you wanna stop by, i'm in the Grant Park area near the Zoo.

[wibilly]

shifty does your front left speaker work?

[shifty]

Originally Posted by wibilly

shifty does your front left speaker work?

oops - typo - fixed now.

[Sheverlay]

I have had several Alpine head-units. Excellent quality/sound/features, my only (minor) gripe with them would be that they need a better looking display.
Anyways, if you get one of the higher powered models, you'll definetley want to run the 12V power wire directly to the battery (with appropriate in-line fuse close to battery) using 10 guage or thicker cable (most people overlook this, even some stereo guys). Also, it would be a good idea to take out all the old speaker cables, and run some good quality 16 guage or better stuff.

[bad68bowtie]

I don't know that this matters but I figure I should include it anyway, there are three speakers in the truck at the moment, one 6x9 in the dash and the two 6.5s in the glovebox and the wiring for all three of em run into a single cable that goes into that harness for the deck. I guess I'll be ripping all that out anyway but once I thought about it I figured I'd just include that bit of info anyway.

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about-


The deck I'm looking at is the Alpine CDE-9846 and I'm gonna put in Kicker 05KS65 and 05KS40 speakers.

Shifty- I think I may take you up on that offer. Once I get all the pieces in line I'll shoot you a pm and see if we can work something out if that works for you.

[corn]

Id stay away from a 3 speaker hookup. If it were me & I was going with all new equipment, I would get rid of all the old wiring & go with new. Most aftermarket stuff uses the same colors for speaker hook ups. Just make sure you get the colors right when hooking it all up +to+, -to-... If you get a speaker hooked up backwards it will still work but not as good. If one is backwards its called "out of phase". A good way to check is to turn your balance to one side & then the other. The bass should be better in the center than on either side. Another tip... if you have a bunch of speaker wires in one spot & you dont know which speaker they go to, is to take a flashlight battery (ex.AA) & touch one end of a speaker lead to one side of the battery & another to the other end when you hear a click/pop sound in a speaker you you just found the wire for that speaker. Make sense?

[shifty]

sounds good to me. i think i'm out of town next weekend. i'm tied up all day tomorrow, trying to meet up with another forum member and show him some of the good buys for houses near where i live (by zoo, capitol bldng, etc.) let me know, i'll be happy to help you out and i've got all the tools you'll need along with all the connectors and other crap (assuming we're not soldering - soldering really isn't necessary).

that picture up there is some seriously ghettofied wiring - do you lose all sound if you fade left to right or front to rear? it looks to me almost like they're running all three speakers off of one single channel. that's ... wow. never seen that before!