need some help with my amp. its been sittin around for a while and i decided to put it back in the truck. ran all the wires and put everything in. sounds really good until i start the truck. right away the protect light comes on. checked my ground and power supply both good. im using welding cable for power and ground, so i know im gettin enough power. the only thing thats half assed is the rca input which is causing the problem. with rcas unplugged amp comes on fine. a buddy told me it was fine to run off the rear speaker for the input seeing as i have that theftlock nonsense and apparently its costly to put a new hu in. any ideas would be really appreciated thanks

 

from what you are saying it seems like you have the stock head unit? if thats so are you running line out converters from the head unit or how do you have it wired? Stock head units prove to be a problem because the line out converters usually give you poor sound quality. New head units "aftermarket" ones really aren't that expensive. you can get one with an aux input and ipod control for less than $150 and those have pre amp outputs for your rca cables. but it seems your problem isn't only the rca's and the head unit because when the protect light comes on that means something is shorting and you have something not hooked up right. also a nice hint to getting good sound quality is make sure you have shielded rca cables and not the cheap ones because that will give you engine noise.

 

thanks for the quick reply. ya im using the stock head unit would have swapped it out but i was told this was hard and expensive because of the theft lock. lol never heard of these line converters, i just have the wire from a rear speaker running into a butchered rca lol thanks again nice rig by the way

 

Line output converter like Bennidict suggested splices into the wires for the rear speaker wire runs and has a box with RCA outputs so you have a place to connect to. How are the rca cables connected to the rear wires? Tapped together, soldered, just twisted the copper together? You could run a ground off of the rca end that connects to the amp. Never tried it but have seen it done.

Take a small piece of wire and wrap it around the ground side of the rca male plug and then ground it to the body of the vehicle. Sometimes that cuts down on cd player lazer noise and other sounds. But wiring in a line output and using a new set of rcas might be better. Yes you loose a bit of SQ but you wouldnt have to worry about grounding issues and other problems. But since your using a factory radio, your not looking to win any SQ compititions or anything, no offence. So I think it would work great for you. Plus it doesnt require anything more than cut and splice some wires in your factory harness. So you can retain your factory head unit to avoid the hassle of swapping in a new one.

Keep us updated on how it goes!

 

lmao no offense taken im a bit of a hillbilly so that works perfect for me lol. the thing thats really confused me is that if the truck is not running it works beauty. as soon as i crank er over the amp protects. but if the rca is un hooked it will fire up and not protect. ya i just have the copper twisted together from the 6x9 and twisted again into a rca. thanks again guys

 

ok so i went out and grounded a wire to the body and wrapped it around the outside if the rca. still no dice. took the volt meter to it got 13.8 to + and remote wire

 

well things just went from bad to worse. for some reason i now hve zero sound. head unit is on can hear laser in cd player moving nothing out of speakers. no radio either. should have just sold the sub lol

 

you can blow your head unit plugging the wires into the amp like that. there is a possibility it may have killed the amp in the head unit and it isn't producing sound anymore. So even with the amp unhooked from the head unit do you get no sound? I would strongly suggest in getting a line out converter they are like $10-$20 at best buy. but you shouldn't have a problem swapping the theft lock head units mine had that and I just took it out and replaced it.

 

got to work this morning and a buddy took a look at it. the ground from rca was stopping the sound as soon as i took it off and started the truck it came back no problems. then he took the rca off the wire and put it in the high input spot on the amp. lol didnt know it had it. if i had known the head unit was straight forward i would have just swapped it. i was told it was tied into the ignition somehow. thanks for all the help guys

 

Yeah I was thinking the theft lock is only a part of the headunit and not spidered into anything else in the truck. Now if you had a Land Rover or something like that that would be a diffrent story.

On some of the Mercedes and Land Rovers, the radio is spidered into the Navigation, AC, and some other electronics and if it is removed, all of that fails to work. The companies say it cuts down on theft. But I say they just want people to come to them for radio installs and the such so they can cash in on the aftermarket audio industry.

And I'm a hillbilly from the hills of the great state of West Virginia, so I hear ya on that one, lmfao!