88 mustang radio install - no sound!

Hey all! I've done a few google group searches and I am a bit confused as to my problem, but I think I am getting closer to the solution.

I have a cd player, 88 mustang, and a wiring harness from walmart. When it is all hooked up the radio comes on just fine but no sound comes out of the speakers. (Also all speakers work with the factory head unit).

I do not know if the mustang has the "premium sound" with the amp or not.

There is a wire that is blue with a white stripe and the blue /w white stripe wire on my cd player said antenna so I skipped it. Looking at the walmart diagram here at work I see that the blue /w white wire is really "Remote Amp". So I assume that my problem is that since it's not hooked up the remote amp is not coming on and I am not getting any power?

Which wire on the cd player would this need to be hooked up to? I assume that it is either the red (power) or the yellow (Remote).

I also read alot of posts talking about having to bypass the internal amp if I have one. Surely I dont have to do this? I dont care if the speakers only go as loud as the internel amp can go :-)

Thanks!

Reply to
Ree-Yees
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More information. I was reading and I found this post:

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It makes it sound like I need to unplug some other plugs from the factory amp (if i have one), but what would I plug them into then?

Reply to
Ree-Yees

"Ree-Yees" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

If your CD player is aftermarket, chances are fair to good that it's got more clean power than the Premium Sound amp, so you'd want to bypass it anyway.

Just hook the power, memory, and lighting leads from the CD to the car, then hook the speaker leads from the CD directly to the speakers. It may entail some "custom wiring" but it will sound a lot better.

Reply to
Joe

If I recall correctly, the speaker wiring connector is the same... unplug it from the Ford amp, then plug adapter into it..

Dont butcher wires needlessly

Joe is right, though ...for example: the standard ford radio/cassette in

95 is far better than the premium of 88

Joe wrote:

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

had the same problem with and 86 with premium sound. by pass the factory amp. if I remember right there are 2 possible locations either directly under the dash speaker or under the rear seat. you can't just unplug the amp and then plug into the speakers you will have to jumper some of the lugs in the harness.

Reply to
walt peifer

I found the amp inbehind the stock radio. I'm glad they made it horribly accessable, lol. Anyways I decided it would be in my best interest to bypass the amp instead of using it. The plug coming out of the amp going to the speakers does not match the plug coming out of the wiring harness I bought.

I took the plug coming out of the amp and I cut it. I used a volt meter to find out which wires went to which speaker. I spliced those wires into my aftermarket radios wiring harness and all is working perfectly.

Also for informational purposes my mustang has the stock 6 speaker setup: 2 dash, 2 doors, 2 rear. However the plug on has 8 wires going into it and

12 coming out. The two in the dash are linked to the two in the door. You could always cut them if you wanted to do something different with the dash speakers.
Reply to
Cameron

One of the problems with that year was the return leads for the front speakers were sometimes reversed. Take a D cell battery and touch it to the two wires that are supposed to be going to each of the front & rear speakers, if wired correctly your should get a "scratching" noise coming from the appropriate speaker. If you don't hear anything your returns are probably swapped, just touch each return in sequence until you hear something. You can re-wire the plug if necessary just by popping out the leads and placing the in the correct order on the OEM side of the harness.

Reply to
Ironrod

Jeez I just went through this, Amp may be under passenger seat. My amp fell apart when I tried to clean it with electrical cleaner(diodes and stuff fell right off the board, kinda funny)I don't beleave the amp is required with aftermarket radios cause i think it s just to save space in das.LF, RF, LR, RR, comes in on thin wires, power, gnd and "on"{remote amp) come in on heavey wires with out put to speakers on same plug. door and dash are together speakers are paired linear on plug +-+-+-+-+-+- I couldn't find a bypass to plug in so I had to identify myself

Reply to
android32

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