Hey all.

I have searched and searched through pages of threads here trying to find some help but I post this in a last resort. I really don't want to be defeated by this car! ha.

So I have replaced my factory clarion tape deck with a much more modern Pioneer CD headunit (nothing too fancy). I used a metra wiring harness for Mazda, matched all the wires, connected the blue/white remote wire to the blue/white wire (1J I believe it is, green/black on factory harness). and I get NO audio from the speakers.

The headunit is working fine, switches inputs, charges my phone, will play a CD. I just get no audio. I have rechecked all my wiring to the posts here and to the wiring diagrams from the wiring manuals for the vehicle. Everything looks like it should work. I have the center speaker disconnected as well since it wasnt working before i replaced the headunit anyways.

Anyone run into problems like this? this is the worst stereo install I've ever been through! haha.

Oh by the way this is on an FD (93, non bose).

 

its gonna sound trivial but can u post a pic of your harness?

im assuming your speakers worked prior and u just swapped HU recently?

im no guru but i just did my pioneer and was a breeeze (avh p4200) which did u get out of curiosity?

 

Ill have to snap a picture of it. Yes well the drivers door speaker worked before. I have replaced both the drivers and passenger speakers with Polk audio 6.5" speakers. The head unit is a Pioneer 6300ub. I am stumped. I have checked the wires and the ground. I'm just not sure anymore!

 

Was the deck new or used?

 

I bought the deck brand new from Best Buy.

 

theres a wire you have to splice into to turn on the factory amps if its bose. I believe its the black and green wire, but its in the sticky about the bose stuff if you look.

 

actually just read posts 2-6 on the bose/scosche diagram sticky at the top of this section...

 

I have read that before, but I don't have the Bose system.

Just the base (R1) clarion tape deck, but there is a center speaker amp that according to the wiring diagram for the base radio, is spliced to both front door speakers. So I am wondering if that is what is holding me back.

I am not sure if I connected the right wires, but from digging on this site, I found a post that said to splice the blue/white wire (amp/remote signal from the head unit) to the 1J pin on the factory radio harness (which is olive green/black if I am not mistaken).

Still no dice. I am going to investigate with my multimeter tomorrow, and if worse comes to worse I will just run new speaker wires directly from the head unit to the new door speakers.

 

yeah anytime an amp is involved with a speaker it will have to be kicked on. try to tie into that amp wire for the center channel

 

I would try and run new wires and completely bypass any and all amps that may be stock. Have you tried powering the speakers directly from the unit?

 

I have not. I just wish there was an easier way to get this working. I'm going to play with it now.

 

So I think I have stumbled upon something interesting.
I was checking all the speaker wire connections and using an ohmmeter/connectivity test I found that all my wiring was done correctly and I have continuity on each speaker.

I checked the radio relay and I found something I wasn't expecting. There is no relay... but what looks to be a factory jumper. However the pins being jumped don't really make sense.

If you look at the pictures I've uploaded, you will see that the radio relay has four pins, three on the top and one beneath. well the jumper I found has one wire (which is shared over 3 pins. and only two of the pins actually connect with the relay wires when it is plugged in.

So what is being jumped... 1J (green/black wire) which is the signal to activate the relay is being jumped to the output (the other side of the relay) which is supposed to be connected from the battery to the amp to turn it on. So when I turn the radio on, all that's getting sent to the amp is a small reference voltage that is meant to activate the relay instead of powering the center speaker amp.

Now besides that point. since I did get the speakers to show continuity, should this mean that they should be working when I plug the head unit in? maybe its possible I have a bad head unit?

 

OK all, I figured it out. I cant say I can explain it, but I figured it out.

All I had to do was unplug the rear speaker connector from the harness adapter (since both rear speakers are blown anyways). and voila.... everything works fine.

I cant believe that was all that was holding me back.... haha

 

I've had a problem in the past with a new speaker/headunit install in a friends car. The shop that did the installation, didn't pay attention to wiring of the speaker polarity. After two weeks with weird sound issues two speakers blew so I took a look at it, installed two new speakers, and re-wired everything correctly (polarity wise, + - connections) and everything works great.

So make sure all the wires are connected to the correct + or - connector, even if 1 speaker is wired wrong some headunits will not send any sound signal to any speakers, while other cheaper headunits just send out the signal regardless and screw up the speakers.

 

Thats what it was, the rear speakers are the original ones, so they are very old and very broken, they actually blew out on me on the way home from buying it, wasn't that loud either. ha
I didn't realize that the radio would not send a signal to any of the speakers in that circumstance.

While I was trying to figure this out, I did check all the wiring to each speaker. It was all good!