So I bought this 1996 Mustang V6 from an auction and it's an absolutely amazing car. The only downside is that whoever the previous owner was, he completely tore out his audio set up which I don't know what it is. The wiring for the head unit is all over the place and there are some unplugged wiring harness type plugs. Behind the rear seat, there are torn cables that are for Amps and stuff as well as other torn wires. I don't know much about audio and all the wiring and stuff and I've been doing research trying to figure out what I should do and how i should approach it. I got a friend to install a JVC head unit and only the driver side door tweeter works. Any help? Can someone suggest a route I should take in order to fix everything and get it working? I just want sound coming out of all my speakers. I also just want it simple, not so many wires and stuff. Thank you, just joined btw

 

run new wires. The door woofers were driven by external amplifiers in the trunk.

 

Thanks for your response! But i still need help lol

So if i was to run new wires, what would i do? Should i take out the door panels, tweeters, back seat, and amps and just completely re-wire the whole thing?

How do i know if the speakers are bad or the amp is bad?

 

Also, there is an audio wire hanging out right under the glove compartment and it looks as if it's coming from the passenger side door. I'll take it to a professional if i know for sure that i cant do this, but i rather do it myself just for the knowledge

 

umm noone is going to write a step by step procedure to fix your car. Here are a couple tips. Get a wiring diagram for your mustang so you can make sense of all those wires.
You can't just "get rid" of wires either... they are there for a reason.. Every speaker has two wires, a power and ground. So if your car has 4 speakers, 8 wires are for the speakers alone. Then you have a power, ground, and memory wire for the head unit. You may have a dimmer wire, remote wire and others as well. What probably happened is someone had an aftermarket system in there and took everything out before they sold it/repoed.

If you spend the time and have either an ammeter or a circuit tester you can test the power speaker wires to make sure they are getting power. If they are getting power but you have no sound then something is wrong with the speaker, but I bet you guys just didn’t wire them correctly. Also, depending on the aftermarket stereo put in the wires might be going to an amp that is no longer there which would explain why you aren’t getting sound (although it would affect both tweeters not just one).

Unfortunately I think what you want is a “connect the black wire and everything is fixed” solution but you or a shop is going to have to wire everything up and check everything. It’s honestly not that hard, it will take time and patience but as long as nothing is wrong with it you could have it done in a couple hours.

 

yeah, it's probably going to be "easier" to run new speaker wires for your new head unit.

if the factory system has been gutted like you said it was, the amps are probably gone too. best to just forget they were ever there.

nitpick: practically all radios (OEM and aftermarket) have differential (or "balanced") speaker outputs. Which means the (+) wire has the audio signal, and the (-) wire has the inverse of the audio signal thereby doubling the voltage to the speaker. Single-ended (or "unbalanced") radios which tie the (-) wire to one common ground point haven't been used in cars for decades. if you try to connect the (-) speaker wire from your radio to a ground point you'll trip it's short circuit protection and it'll shut off.

 

thanks guys! I'll just take a much more patient approach and see what each wire is and test them out! i just found a wiring diagram online so it should help.

Any tips on removing the back seat?

 

Check out the Mach460 Info Page Everything you need to know about the oem audio system, it helped me a lot and made my headunit install only take about 30 minutes. 4 channel amp and door/deck speakers are sitting in the closet waiting for me to getaroundtoit. Sub/amp install is up to you, run some 00 to the trunk for the amp and you should be fine.

There's 3 small bolts holding the top seat back in. The bottom seat has 2 release latches underneath, right about the middle of each seat.

If you still have them, the stock amps aren't that bad. Whenever I get to replacing my door/deck speakers I plan on keeping the tweets on the door pillar and the amp in the console to run them.

Any other questions just ask.