Hey all!

I'm trying to make my rear speakers work. Previous owner installed (kinda) an aftermarket head unit and I'm only getting sound out of the front speakers. Looks like he wired up the head unit properly, spliced proper and all that. I tried putting the old head unit in and there was no sound at all. That leads me to believe he cut the wires out of the old connectors to work with the new head unit.

Now the weird part. I pulled the glove box out to look behind there. He told me he had removed the cd changer, which he did. But it looks like the amp was also pulled out? I can't find the stock amp lol. I've never messed around with stereos, but the videos I've been watching for "research" shows the guy bypassing the stock amp. This just doesn't make much sense to me. The amp would still be needed to power the stock sub right? And is it needed for the back speakers as well?

Hope this makes a little bit of sense...

 

Does the subwoofer work?

 

No sound out the back at all, sub included. No RCA cables found either to plug into the head unit....

 

The stock amp can't be triggered by an aftermarket headunit, that's why it needs to be bypassed. Your easiest solution is to just put an aftermarket unit back in and wire up the rear speakers.

 

Check aftermarket unit for any power to rear speakers, possible internal amp fried, or bad wiring to speakers, But two bad sets of wires at once, improbable

 

Thanks for the help my doods, I will look into this more this weekend!!

 

Hey man! Just wondering if you know how powerful of an aftermarket amp I would need to install to get the stock sound system back in working order? I think someone online told me 200W or 300W? Does that sound about right?

 

200 watts per channel would be a powerful home amplifier. The problem is that there are home watts and car watts. Car amp wattage gets advertised at levels that would literally blow the amp's fuse if they were actually drawing that much power. 40 to 50 REAL watts would power any speaker that has any business in a car quite nicely. The hard part is getting a real wattage rating on a car amp. Look for a wattage rating taken from 20-20,000 hz into 4 ohms with less than .1% distortion.

 

Yours should look something like this. The factory Amp is in the red box.

You have to remember that these cars are old and with modern technology, todays aftermarket head units provide more than enough power to drive the stock speakers. I agree with other posters that the advertised watts per channel are embellished with aftermarket HUs, but I have ran the stock speakers off a Sony head unit in my current car before. This was before I updated the speakers and I have to say there was little to no difference to me. If anything my Sony HU had more power than the stock Amp.

I have replaced all my speakers and I'm still running my fronts and rears off my Sony. I have some nice entry level speakers, but my Sony has more than enough power to do the job. I originally planned on a 4 channel amp for my front and back speakers, but I decided that for the speakers I had, I was in good shape. If I stepped-up to something that allowed over 120 + watts RMS and peaked out over 200 watts...something like this:
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_210TU6...II.html?tp=105
Then yes I would be running an amp.

I have had three of these 2nd Gen cars and I have had a system in each, that I installed. I advise looking for a nice head unit and calling it a day. That way if you want to add a sub down the road you can easily add one with the aftermarket HU. Forget the stock sub...its crap and over 20 years old crap at that.

 

Thanks for the info dude!

The last owner completely removed the amp and CD changer, wired in his own HU. I think I have everything I need now I was just confused as to how to get the sub working, but I know now it's not going to happen. Really I'm just trying to get my rear speakers working, so the HU should handle that.

 

I don't know if you can read this, but I thought it might help.

 

You have realistic 2 options in your situation. If you really want a factory system then a donor vehicle would be the most affordable route to replace everything that was altered/removed. I would check the local Pick and Pull, or watch Craigslist for a similar vehicle that’s being parted out. It needs to have the same system your vehicle came with. Trying to wire in a Factory Navigation system might sound easy but you’ll find issues you would never imagine. You”ll want to get the harness, the factory amp, any brackets that mount these pieces, and anything else that you can see would make it easier. It’s a good time to look for any other parts your car needs. Just take plenty of pictures before disassembling anything. If you don’t get to ambitious you should have a decent factory sound system up and running for less than $100.
If the car was seriously butchered by the previous installer then the aftermarket system is the better option. If you only listen to Sports Talk Radio then an aftermarket head unit wired directly to 4 door mounted speakers will be fine. But if your wanting it to sound at least as good as factory then a good 5 channel amplifier would be an excellent choice for power and still budget friendly.I had a Skar Audio RP.600.5 that was really affordable and was a great option to replace the original amp. It was certified for 4x65 watt rms and had a sub channel rated @ 200w @4 ohms and it was 2/1 ohm stable so if heat wouldn’t have been a problem, I could have really pumped up the power. I put it in the factory spot in the dash and hooked up to some budget 6-1/2” door speakers and a 10” aftermarket sub in rear deck and i thought it sounded better than any factory stereo I had ever heard and cost just a few hundred dollars for everything. If your a talented guy, you can handle this work without to much trouble. If your not confident you can handle it, order the pieces you want online and find a local installer, there are plenty around.

 

Got it all sorted. Thanks for all the info and help dudes! Previous owner butchered it a bit but I was able to get it together