QuestionGarry,
Please allow me to pick your brain for a few moments concerning a 2006 Dodge Ram 3500 Crew Cab pickup. It came from the factory with a 6 disc in-dash changer and the Infinity 7 Speaker Sound System. Now, mind you, I am asking for friend, since it his his pickup. So, let us begin...
A few weeks ago, my friend's cd changer in his pickup spit out a small ring (which holds and stacks the cd's) along with the cd from his changer. After that, the cd changer ceased to function. The am/fm controls still worked, but, naturally, he wanted to listen to his cd's. So, he enlisted my help, since I had just finished installing a system in his brothers '05 Ford Superduty. Now, I consider myself mechanically inclined, and somewhat competent (though, my spelling may be something to muse at..) when it comes to car stereos. So, I made a few phone calls to find out what it would take to install an aftermarket cd player in his truck - a Pioneer DEH-P770MP, to be exact. All the shops (Circuit City, Best Buy, and a few local shops) assured me that even though it had the Infinity Sound System in it, the regular dash kit and wiring harness(80-6502) from Metra would work. Well, I should have known that I would be in for a doozy when I found the regular dash kit to be inadequate, and needed one for a 2004 and up Durango.
As I stripped the dash of it's not-so-friendly cd changer, and took a gander at the wiring harnesses, my eyes narrowed and my eye brows began to swoop. I discovered that there was not only 1, but 2 harnesses in the back. I immediately called the guys that sold me the harnesses to question them about the two harnesses. They said that the main (bigger) one was all I needed, and that the other (smaller) one was simply changer and steering wheel controls. Up to that point, I had somehow kept myself from splicing together the aftermarket harness with that of the cd players. But, they gave me go-ahead. So, I pulled out the Metra harness, and test fit it to see if it would work with the main harness, which it fit onto. So, a few minutes later, all the splicing was finished, and I plugged in the harnesses to test the cd player. Only, to my dismay, it wouldn't even power up. Perplexed, I popped the hood and checked fuses, inspected the conections, and finally re-inspected the wiring harness. Upon close inspection, I came to find out that there was no switched power wire in the main harness. My test light confirmed what my eyes saw - that there wasn't even a pin and wire in the same slot as the switched power. After making another phone call, I was advised to simply run my own switched power, which I did.
Triumph was finally mine! Or so I thought, anyways... After having the cd player power up when the key was turned, my face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning, only to have that look wiped completely off by what I heard -- nothing... There was no sound! Aaarghh! So, again, I began to inspect the harness. And, what do you know, there weren't any wires in the top half of the factory harness, where the front speakers were plugged in on the Metra side (I hope you followed that..). Thus, I became intrigued and infuriated at the same time at the devilish problem. I just had to figure it (maybe that had to with the fact that my friend was a Pro Bull Rider, and prolly would have beat me pretty good if not..) Luckily (or maybe not..) I was replacing the dash speakers at the same time with some Audiobahn 3 1/2" speakers, and was able to check the color codes on the wires. I searched for the same wires in the dash, I found them. Wanna guess where? Yep, in the OTHER harness that was just changer and steering wheel controls... So I just tried plugging the speaker out wires from the cd player into those color coded dash speaker wires in the other harness. But it didn't work.
As I was pretty much boggled, I took it down to a local shop (the high-rollers sold me the harnesses and failed already) to ask their advice on it. They just told me the same thing as the other shops - at least until I convinced him to come outside in the snow and take a look at the truck and the wires. He was blown away, and just as confused as I was. He even made a few phone calls himself to try and figure it out. He simply advised me to run new wires. Now, in a 79 bronco, that's easy. But in an 06 Ram, I thought it more of a pain in the hind parts. So, here is where most of my problems start...
I ended up running new wires to the front dash speakers, and door speakers. But, for the rear, that will be a major pain in my rear. So, I haven't done it yet. Only the front speakers work, as of now. It would like to utilize the wires running back into the doors to power those speakers from the cd player, but the wires change colors as they go through the back doors (no joke!). I followed the original harness down the door sill until it hops through the pillar, where a harness is employed for (I'm guessing) easy door removal. And that is where the colors change. Though, I did recongize some of the same colors along the doorsill as matching those that were in the smaller harness for the stereo.
One problem with the door speakers is that they are designed as kind of a mid/bass woofer by infinity - a simple single cone 6x9 without a tweeter or midrange or even wizzer cone, because the dash speakers were designed for that. I could just replace the door speakers with an aftermarket pair of 6x9's, but that would be more money. And it still wouldn't solve the back speaker problem.
So, another option that I have, is to *simply* bypass the factory amp. Unfortunately, nobody knows where it is. Or, at least until I found it after my relentless wire tracing. Even more unfortunate, is the placement of the factory amp (sshhh... don't tell anyone - it's under the airbag...). Now, it used to just be that you could bypass those infinity amps by running a harness from the cd player to them, with part of the harness running to the original harness for power and the like, and the other to the output side of the amp harness for the speakers. At least, that's the theory behind it. To be honest, I've never done one myself. But the guys that sold me the harness say that you don't even have to do that - that you can just plug a cd player into the original harness and it will work. So, now I am confused. Is there some way that I can utilize the factory amp since it does create convenient crossovers for the tweeters and make boomy bass with the door speakers (my friend likes that. I prefer a pair of 10's or 12's). AND, it has already been wired. I don't have to run wires all they was to the back and through the doors. What kind of input does the amp use? A line level sounds like a logical choice since you can see the wires run to it from the factory cd changer, but I really don't know. If not, is there a type of converter out there (same idea as a line level converter to RCA's) that will make the thing run off the aftermarket deck? Can I just tap into the OTHER factory harness since I know all the wire codes, and have it work? Is there some kind of signal that has to come from the cd player to tell the amp to turn on that I need, like an REM on any aftermarket amp? Or do I just need to suck it up and re-wire the whole system and replace the door speakers? Do you have any other ideas for setting up this system?
Now, if you've made it all the way to here, I sincerly thank you for your time and thoughts. You will have to excuse my inability to say things simply in a few short sentences, but I felt like the situtation needed some explaination, lest you consider me a fool. Or maybe it's too late for that... In any case, thank you.
Brenton
Answerwow! you have already done more than it would take me to give up on. i imagine you have a bad fusible link in the original harness, finding that would have saved you a lot of headache. i would try crutchfield.com and see if the harness you got is even the correct one. from here, however, i think your only option is to wire it as if no previous stereo even existed. arrrggghhh! run new wiring to rear speakers and forget about the existing amp. i know you didn't want to hear that, but i just don't have any other suggestions without having it here where i can attack it with my meters. and you don't seem a fool to me.
