Amp Issue

[Drahcir495]

I need help.I am trying to get my stereo to work with an amp. I have never had an amp in any of my Jeeps before. I think it will let me clearly hear the radio over the tire and road noise. I have gotten the radio to tur the amp on, but nothing from speakers?? I have tried all combinations of the rca cables and speakers wire but nothing 🤬. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Where the cables are supposed to go? Here is what I am working with->

 

 

 Thank you. What are thes two black  connectors for?? Have not tried those 

 

 

[jdog]

I need help.I am trying to get my stereo to work with an amp. I have never had an amp in any of my Jeeps before. I think it will let me clearly hear the radio over the tire and road noise. I have gotten the radio to tur the amp on, but nothing from speakers?? I have tried all combinations of the rca cables and speakers wire but nothing . Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Where the cables are supposed to go? Here is what I am working with->

 

 
 Thank you. What are thes two black  connectors for?? Have not tried those 

 
 

Only thing I see is that the rca is on a input not a output but that's about the only thing obvious to me. But I've never installed one before. Maybe switch it to rear output on the radio?

[Dzimm]

Yeah that's your problem.  On the back of the radio, switch the RCA cables to rear output.

[Drahcir495]

Thank you both! I will try it and let you know.

[BeaterComanche86]

I think the small gauge speaker wire isn’t correct either. If I remember correctly one wire needs to go to the left + or - and the other wire to the opposite of that on the right. 

Either left + and right - 

or left - and right +

 

That ground looks hella small btw

[Jeep Driver]

Your ground wire must be equal to your Pos wire in gauge and must be no longer than 2 feet long......straight to a good ground, not just a sheet metal screw. 

[Drahcir495]

This thing is . One spot works but only on the radio setting. CD and USB have nothing. Amp is turned off on these inputs. I am going to try another amp and then take it to a audio store if I can’t get it to work. I can do a lot of things but this isn’t one of them 

[Drahcir495]

51 minutes ago, BeaterComanche86 said:

I think the small gauge speaker wire isn’t correct either. If I remember correctly one wire needs to go to the left + or - and the other wire to the opposite of that on the right. 

Either left + and right - 

or left - and right +

 

That ground looks hella small btw

I will try this too. Thank you

[Drahcir495]

43 minutes ago, Jeep Driver said:

Your ground wire must be equal to your Pos wire in gauge and must be no longer than 2 feet long......straight to a good ground, not just a sheet metal screw. 

Oh no, my ground goes to the front where I have a dedicated post that is wired directly to battery. Definitely not the same gauge as power cable

[BeaterComanche86]

@Drahcir495 I guess I should have asked before but your trying to get the subwoofer to work correct? 

[Jeep Driver]

15 minutes ago, Drahcir495 said:

Oh no, my ground goes to the front where I have a dedicated post that is wired directly to battery. Definitely not the same gauge as power cable

If you have 8g wire to the pos post, you must have 8g wire to ground, ground must be within 2 feet of the amp.

[jdog]

This thing is . One spot works but only on the radio setting. CD and USB have nothing. Amp is turned off on these inputs. I am going to try another amp and then take it to a audio store if I can’t get it to work. I can do a lot of things but this isn’t one of them 

I read somewhere that if you power your amp with the power antenna feed off the radio that it would do the same thing.

[Dzimm]

2 hours ago, Drahcir495 said:

This thing is . One spot works but only on the radio setting. CD and USB have nothing. Amp is turned off on these inputs. I am going to try another amp and then take it to a audio store if I can’t get it to work. I can do a lot of things but this isn’t one of them 

Your remote wire is connected to the radio power antenna wire.  You must connect it to the proper wire on the radio harness, it should be blue or labled REM.  The amp is most certainly not your problem, it's the wiring.  

 

Also as stated above, shorten your ground to 2ft or less and use at least a 2gauge wire, if you don't size you ground to be at least the same size as your power wire, you run the risk of burning the truck to the ground.  I would also recommend upgrading your positive wire to at least 2ga also.  0ga is best but 2ga is good.  Anything with a smaller gauge is not great and can and usually will cause you problems.  

[Minuit]

The ground wire carries the same current as the power wire. They must be rated for the same current as each other, and that number should be well over the actual current you expect the wire to see. Usually, this means making them the same size. You also want the wires to be as short as possible to minimize resistance, which is just another way of saying what Jeep Driver is telling you.

 

Dzimm and jdog are correct about the power antenna wire. On many factory head units (at least the ones I deal with) the power antenna lead is always on when the radio is on. On aftermarket headunits, this usually isn't so. Aftermarket headunits will usually have a remote wire in the harness for this reason. The owner's manual for the radio should tell you color and connector position of this wire. Usually, it's blue/white. Connect that to the amp instead. If you aren't running a power antenna, the power antenna wire can and should be removed from the connector.

 

The "speaker output" wires go to the speakers as you probably suspect. The + wire goes to the + speaker terminal, and vice versa. The + terminal should be labeled, and if they're a decent speaker, the + will normally have a larger (0.187") quick connect terminal than the - terminal (0.110").

 

If this were my installation, I'd feel a lot better using actual terminals on those screw-on amp connections rather than stuffing the wire in.

 

What model is the amplifier? Is there a sub in this system? How many speakers are you running? What are the speakers?

[Drahcir495]

10 hours ago, BeaterComanche86 said:

@Drahcir495 I guess I should have asked before but your trying to get the subwoofer to work correct? 

No subwoofer, just speakers.

[BeaterComanche86]

Just now, Drahcir495 said:

No subwoofer, just speakers.

Okay then disregard what I said about the speaker wire and good luck 

[Drahcir495]

I don’t want it to burn down! I will upgrade the negative grounding wire first; one came with the amp kit to begin with. I will give you all a little more information. I have a kicker amp. I have six speaker - 2 overhead , 2 front and 2 in lift gate. I have the remote wired to the amp remote lead labeled on the radio. I had the same exact problems with the other amp. I will update the ground wire and try the power antenna wire. Then I will report back. Thanks for all the input so far

[Drahcir495]

24 minutes ago, BeaterComanche86 said:

Okay then disregard what I said about the speaker wire and good luck 

I need the luck 😏

[Minuit]

How are the speakers wired? Is it still the same as in the first picture? If not, can you post a new picture of the speaker outputs and describe how the wires are set up and where each speaker wire is going?

 

That's only a 4 channel amp, so you're going to have to wire two sets of speakers together if you want all 6. Actually, I'd probably just leave out the liftgate speakers entirely. More speakers doesn't automatically make things sound better and wiring them in parallel could very well burn up your amp. Usually it just means there's 6 woofers and 6 tweeters (12 if you are using 3 way speakers) fighting over the same frequencies unless you're very careful with setup. My truck sounded much, much better the second I got rid of my rear speakers, but that's for you to decide once you get it working.

 

Can you find out the exact model of the amplifier? I'm trying to pull up an owner's manual for it.

 

Make sure the remote wire on the radio goes to the remote wire on the amp. Don't connect the power antenna wire to the amp in any way.

[Drahcir495]

Minuit - I will answer all your questions when I get home tonight. Thank you

[Drahcir495]

Ok here is what I have in pictures - I will be changing the ground cable before I power anything up. 

 

 

i definitely have the amp wired to the amp remote line coming from the radio. 

[Drahcir495]

Oh, if I didn’t mention it the other amp did the same thing. 

[Dzimm]

Your other amp did the same thing because it's getting power from your power antenna lead not the radio remote wire.  Double check the wiring at the radio harness.

[Drahcir495]

16 minutes ago, Dzimm said:

Your other amp did the same thing because it's getting power from your power antenna lead not the radio remote wire.  Double check the wiring at the radio harness.

I will check that but it was labeled “amp rem”. Could be mislabeled 

[Dzimm]

4 minutes ago, Drahcir495 said:

I will check that but it was labeled “amp rem”. Could be mislabeled 

If it's labeled that way and not working, use a voltmeter to check it, should have power at all times no matter what source the audio is from.