I have a small system in my 95 2 door--nothing big or radical but it serves the purpose. It's been in there maybe 5 years and I never really had any issues with it until today. I start the truck up this morning and the amp is making kind of like squawking noises through the 2 10's and the rear 6x9's( the amp is wired to them). As I was on my way to an appointment I had no time to mess with it, so I just pulled the fuses for the time being. I finally had time to mess with it later in the day, so I put the fuses back in and it's not wanting to work now. There's no music coming from the speakers that the amp is hooked to, it's just making sounds like someone is pulling the wires then reconnecting them, really fast and continuously. It all worked yesterday and I've never really had issues with it before. Does it maybe sound like a ground or wiring issue coming from the back of the radio? The previous day I dropped the lower part of the dash to replace my flasher. I know I'm giving somewhat vague info, but I described it the best way that I could.
I'm not sure of the specs of the amp, but it's a 4 channel that I'm only using as a 2 channel. I wired the 2 rear 6x9's and 2 10 inch subs to it. I know--it isn't wired right, but until now it thumped with no problems for 5 years--no issues until now!
Also--can anyone maybe put up a wiring diagram for the 4 speakers so maybe I can wire it correctly? I know I'm going to have to rewire and I just want to make it a 1 step deal instead of doing the job twice.
Forgot--I wired a different amp to see if there was anything wrong with the other amp and it had the same problem. So I know it's neither one of the amps. The 2nd amp was cutting in and out also and the power light was getting super dim then brightening up. The power lead going in stays a steady hot--it's connected straight to the battery with an inline fuse and it shows a steady hot(used an ordinary test light). Think it might be a ground? Wire from scratch?
Thanks guys.

 

Check the remote wire and see if it's staying on steady when you have things turned on. Grounds are definitely something to check, they're far more important than a lot of people realize. Disconnect the RCA's and see if it's still making the strange noise, but I'm thinking your problem is likely with the wiring itself if another amp did the same thing.

However, you say you're running your 4 channel amp as a 2 channel. Almost every 4 channel amp on the market is only 4 ohm stable when bridged. So unless you're 6x9's and your subs are 8 ohms each, or unless you wired them in series for an 8 ohm total load on the amp I imagine you've got the 6x9's wired in parallel to one channel and the subs wired in parallel to the other. If they're all single 4 ohm voice coils (I'm sure the 6x9's are, dunno for sure about ur subs) then you have a 2 ohm load on that amp and it's very likely to fail soon. I can help you with rewiring it, but I'll need to know for sure the subs and 6x9's you have to help.

Now, you've got something strange going on with the wiring I think. There may be an issue with how your HU is wired, or at least how everything is connected behind the dash. I'd go through everything and double check it, disconnect the RCA's, check the remote wire, and definitely go around the grounds. It's funny that it happened the day after you changed the flasher. That's not likely a coincidence, it's probably the clue and has something to do with the cause. Some wire got pinched, connection got disturbed, something happened when you changed it. Is your HU installed with a harness adapter or did the factory plug get cut off? How good are all the wire connections behind the dash, are they soldered and heat shrinked, crimp connected, wire nutted, or just wrapped and taped?

 

I went through the complete system today. Took out the HU and checked all wires. Everything is just taped. All connections are good and I did use an aftermarket harness--so nothing is cut or spliced. Remote is good and all grounds were rechecked and checked out ok. Rca's are good. Out of the entire setup, the HU is the only thing wired right! Weird tho--checked the ground on the amp and took a test light to it(put the clip to a hot lead instead of grounding it)it checked good, but when I pulled the amp ground out and held it to the amp screw the wire started to glow and it smoked a bit! That was the ground. I checked the other end and re-tightened it and it's good now. The 6x9's are 4 ohm's and Rockford Fosgates--they're tri-axles(sp?). The rear subs are also Rockfords and also are 4 ohm's.When I dropped the lower part of the dash to replace the flasher, I made sure nothing was pinched and everything was good.
I rigged everything from the amp to the 6x9's to the subs. I couldn't get my one sub to work and the other one was super low so I ran both positives together and both negatives together and now it sounds ok. I ran both of those leads to the rear hookups on the amp along with the rear 6x9's and it was cutting in and out again(led light was going on and off)so as I was playing around and disconnected the leads from the 6x9's to the amp and it worked! So I just left it like that and taped them off. As it is right now it works but I'm not really getting a thump like before.
BTW-I changed out to the other amp. Do you think you could make some kind of diagram for me? I'm totally lost on this. I really don't need anything to catch fire right now! I'm using the 4 ch as a 2 channel with 2 10's and 2 6x9's going through the amp. Everything is rated at 4 ohm's. I'm using the HU to power my doors and dash speakers.
Any more help would greatly be appreciated!

 

Ok--what I have--4 channel amp going to my 2 rear 6x9's-4 ohm's and to my 2 10 subs-4 ohm's-Then I have the HU running my 2 6 1/4's in my front doors and the 2 4x6's in my dash. I'm using 1 or 2 channels on my amp only(don't remember how many). Can anyone shoot me an easy wiring diagram? Doesn't have to be anything complicated, just utilizing what I have.
Thanks guys.

 

anyone?

 

Here's the information you seek. You should really just run the amplifier as a regular 4 channel amp since everything you have is 4 ohms. Wiring to 2 ohms on any single channel won't get you any more power and is only harder on the amp. Wiring to 2 ohms bridged will end of destroying the amp in time, but if you just run it like you see here then everything will work and the amp will continue to last many years.




Also, the reason running down to 2 ohms (two speakers on one channel) won't get you any more power is because it's shared between the connected speakers. For instance, let's say you have an amp that delivers 50 watts into 4 ohms and 100 into 2 ohms. If you connect two speakers for a 2 ohm load both speakers do not see that 100 watts, they each see 50. When you bridge an amplifier the load each channel sees is halved. That's why most amplifiers that say they're stable at 2 ohms say they can only have a 4 ohm load when bridged, as each channel only sees 2 ohms. If you connect a 2 ohm load on that same bridged amp each channel sees only 1 ohm and that often leads to problems.

I have to imagine that if you're only using two of the channels on the amp then you have a 6x9 and a sub connected on each of two channels and the other two channels are unused. There's no problem there as the amp can handle that 2 ohm load on each of those channels, however it doesn't give you the ability to use the crossovers to your advantage. If you connect everything as you see it in the diagram above, say the 6x9's on channels one and two, and the subs on channels 3 and 4, you can use the high pass crossovers on the 6x9's to reduce the bass frequencies they play to help them get louder with less distortion and use the low pass crossover on the subs so they don't play frequencies they're not designed to such as voices and guitars. The power, as I explained above, will still be the same to all the speakers.

 

Thanks! It makes perfect common sense to wire it the way you show! I have no idea why I just didn't do it that way. So doing it this way will give me the nice thump in my 10's? It's a sealed box that produces some nice thump. There's a switch on the amp that when you use it switches just bass to the 2 channels. Also has a switch for a built in crossover.
I also just came into a nice ported box that had 15's in it. Which do you think would be better--bass wise without changing anything else? I'd change the new box to take my old 10's since the 15's are missing.
BTW--Would I need to get another set of RCA cables? I'm only using only one set now going from the HU to the amp.
I'm sorry if I'm asking dumb questions--I'm trying to learn as I go.

 

No problem, I think the only dumb question is the one a person doesn't ask and ends up tearing something up, lol.

The box for the 15's will be WAY too big for those 10's, keep them in the box they're in. They will probably have about the same thump to them as before, but with the added crossover capability you should be able to get them to sound cleaner which will most likely make them sound a little louder, at the very least better. You don't have to get another set of cables, just a pair of Y splitter's to connect the signal to both sets of the RCA's on the amp.

 

I did rewire the subs and amp as you suggested with the rca splitters. I'm thinking the cd's I burned on my lap top aren't the best. Sounds loud but not really knocking(bass wise). Sometimes I hear whining and when I shut the truck off it's still whining for maybe 5 seconds then cuts out. I've rewired the whole system maybe 5 times in the past few days. I think I'll live with it for awhile!
Thanks for all your help altoncustomtech!

 

Not hitting as hard as it was is likely due to the fact it's not wired down the lower ohm load anymore. Lower ohm loads increase current flow and though the wattage is the same, bass does seem to feel as though it has more impact when the power is based on more current than voltage. (power or wattage is figured by voltage times current)

I have no idea on the whining. Is it coming from the speakers or the amp itself? Glad I could help tho.