Interior Restoration - Ongoing Project & Updates - DUW

[AOD]

I bought a set of 'tamper resistant' torx bits today at Advance Auto for $9 and it had the the right size to remove the ignition switch. As I mentioned before, it literally fell apart with the plastic separating from the metal, so I had only the metal bracket to remove.

I installed the OEM Ford ignition switch Eric sent me and it worked great. I tightened up the steering column u-joints, but left the trim pieces off for now. I'm going to clean up the trim pieces and maybe re-paint them.

On to the stereo...

I mentioned before I had the shared ground system, it's actually 5 terminals at the stereo harness. 4+ for each speaker, 1 ground. The speaker portion of the adapter was wired in, but I had to still connect the power, switched power, and ground to the wires left in the car.

I used some of the crimp style connectors for these, because I didn't want to try and solder in the front seat. I crimped the three wires together, everything seemed snug, so I reconnected the battery to the car.

Key on, lights come on, CD player comes to life. Eject the CD the previous owner left in, put mine in, starts playing for 10 seconds and then just powers down.

Huh?

Nothing.

Fuse at the back of the CD player is good. Fuse at the fuse box for 'radio' (15amp) looked good.

Car started and ran fine, no other power issues...so I don't know why it just died like that.

Any thing I'm missing?

~Adam

[Grand Marquis GT]

By chance does it kick the stereo off when the headlights come on?

Run the ground for the stereo directly to the chassis. Don't use the one in the wiring harness.

Trust me, I know this stuff, done it before

[AOD]

The unit does not even power on anymore...

I believe my 87 had a ground wire that screwed to the back of my new head unit, but that was premium sound. I can try to make my own ground, but where is the best place to ground? I think there is a ground block under the steering wheel dash side, across from the fuse box.

[Grand Marquis GT]

Either that, or there was a metal plate in there somewhere that had a screw already in it...

At least that was the way my 84 was...

[boXman]

My wagon doesn't even have the ground wire hooked up. It was laying there when I pulled the stock radio out...so I just taped it off and left it lay in there when I put the new radio in. :p

[Southern_Pride]

Wiggle the wires. I bet its just a bad connection.

[AOD]

Believe me, I've wiggled.

Tom, your car had premium sound or only 4-speakers? I think the ground wire was for premium only, based on my previous car's setup.

[Grand Marquis GT]

4 speakers...

I hate wiring. Did I ever say that?

[87mefull]

If the headunit doesn't even turn on now, go back and check the fuse box. Wiggling the wires and with it not grounded probably blew the radio fuse, it really doesn't take much since its a 15amp fuse for a non-premium sound setup. I would replace the radio fuse with a 30amp fuse also.

For the ground wires, I spliced both ground wires (headunit harness and the adapter plug) into one large ground wire (12 gauge wire) and then screwed it into a hole on a plate near the headunit.

[interceptor1985]

Me too the wiring is bad in my jeep $950 for the new harness. I can start the jeep then POP im melting. as for your car i'd take the wiring out of a newer model 88-90 and try and use what you can out of that cuz we had no probs putting a cd player in the cop car . do you have another car you can test the unit itself if so I'd do that too.

[gadget73]

The ground wire in my factory wiring harness went bad. The radio just stopped working one day, no ground. I grounded it to the dash and it started working. Do you have +12v to the switched and constant hot still?

Your ignition switch had tamper proof torx? Mine had these bizzare rivet/screw things that didn't have any type of useful head on them. It looked like a rivet, but they weren't. I used a tool I have for removing rounded out bolts, its essentially a socket with like an inverse EZ-Out cut inside it. Hammered it on there, and they came right out. The replacement ones in the box were tamper proof tho.

[AOD]

Do you have +12v to the switched and constant hot still?

Yeah, the yellow and red wires are still there. There is no harness 'plug' for this wire group though, but Crutchfield did give me one. I think the premium sound systems used the same power harness. I just connected the three wires.

~Adam

[Mercmarquis]

I had tried wiring up my speakers and head unit with the factory premium sound harness. It never worked because the speakers need the - to the head unit to work. So I ditched that setup and ran my own heavy gauge wire to the speakers and grounded the head unit to the dash. Havent had a problem yet except I am clipping my head units amp cause the head unit doesnt put out enough juice to all 4 speakers.

[87mefull]

Mercmarquis: Does your headunit have a set of RCA inputs/outputs? If it does you could hook up all four of your speakers to a small amp and hook it up in the trunk. I did this to a friends car with sony x-plod speakers in a 9c1 caprice using a cheap sony 4 channel amp, might have been 600 watts. No clipping, distortion and the sound quality is amazingly clear at high volumes (50) with lots of bass.

It takes the load off the headunit's amp and allows the speakers to run at the wattage they should run at along with extending the life of the speakers and the headunit. Its not hard to install an amp in a panther either, it only took me a few minutes to install all the wiring for my amp including running the power cable through a gromment in the firewall.

[Mercmarquis]

I think it does have the RCA's. Only thing thats keeping me from doing it is I keep buying other parts so now I'm kinda broke.