for some unknown reason my b2's fm modulator, that i just hooked up, is giving me awful awful static and **** poor audio quality. you can't hear anything at all. and whats more is its not another radio station coming in over it, because i have the antenna unplugged from the modulator!

any idea how to reduce/do away with this prob?

 

well it could be spark plug wires... believe it or not i would reccomend ditching the fm modulator.. as they arnt very good quality

MAtt

 

I don't know what it is about the Bronco II's but they seem to have a lot of phantom electrical problems like that. One day I was cruising down the street and all of a sudden I had awful alternator whine. It was gone the next day though. But just make sure you don't have any groundloops.

It's also possible it's just ignition noise. I'm thinking this is your problem. If this is the case, you can check to see if you're using resistor type plugs and wires if not, replace them. If the noise comes every 2-3 seconds at idle then it's a single sparkplug wire, there's a pinhole in the insulation, whenever the plug wire is energized, an arc jumps from the pinhole to the chassis. If it's more of a constant thing, the problem is usually associated with coil, distributor, or points. If you do all of this, and still have a problem, then it could be caused because of induction. Try pulling the headunit out of the dash while the modulator is on. If the noise goes away, try rerouting the wiring so the wires aren't so close to the headunit.

 

What do you mean by you have the antenna unplugged from the modulator?

 

what exactly is a groundloop?

and i mean i have the antenna unplugged. you know how you have the modulator, and you plug one wire in to the antenna port on the radio, and another in to the car antenna itself? i left the cars antenna wire hanging so i wouldnt receive any fm stations that may intefere.

 

Have you tried plugging in the antenna just to be on the safe side?

Ground loops are made when an audio ground is established in more than one place. The only place the audio ground should be connected to the chassis ground is at the source unit (head unit). This could also be your problem, does your modulator and HU share a ground? If they don't you might want to make them share a ground. 90% of the time, your noise is a ground loop. There's a lot of things that make noise in your system, you just have to diagnose the problem.

 

hmm okay. ill check that out.

you wouldnt happen to know the location of a wire that is only on with the key, would you? i got an omnifi mp3 in-car dealy and it needs that, a ground, and a dimmer wire, which i may just skip.

 

Haha I think I was supposed to go look that up for you.. I'll post it tonight, I've got to re-run wires tonight so when I do that I'll give it a peek.

edit: Do you need the color of the dimmer wire too? If you do I can look that one up for ya too.

 

that would be awesome if you wouldnt mind. i guess it would be good to be thorough and wire everything up properly. heh

many thanks man, im gonna go scope out where im gonna mount this stuff.

 

Yea, I should be able to get that info to you tonight, as long as I'm not too tired from work. I also have to pull my pitman arm and intall another one.. fun fun.

 

yeesh. if its anywhere as hot there as it is here, id put that one off until september :P

 

97* right now. I'm gonna do it tonight after work, I'm on lunch break right now. A storm is moving in right now, so it should cool it down.. whoa!! A tree just split on my neighbor's house! Well I'm gonna go lol.

 

gross man, gross. its like 95 here and humid as hell. not fun :\

spent the day working on my lincoln, i think im all sweated out, its actually starting to feel cool out :P

 

Well in 10 minutes it dropped over 30*F. Can't tell me that's not weird. The winds were strong, when I left home to get back to work there was dust being sucked up in a funnel cloud about 800 feet wide. Birds were flying up into it, it was very weird. I had to drive through it to get to work. Then a guy came in that was driving down the highway that's 3 miles away and he said he saw that huge dust cloud, and he said it went straight up into the sky and linked into a cloud. There's tree branches all over the place, it's crazy. Well I'm going outside now to play with the pitman, and pull the stereo.

 

The ignition wire is yellow with a black line, and the dimmer is baby blue with a red line.