today I'm reinforcing the tabs in the receiver (filter) box with stainless steel strips and adding fender washers top and bottom (at the bottom stud holes) to give the box more side-to-side support and reinforce it. The receiving tabs are starting to crack in two and the holes for the two studs/nuts at the bottom are also cracking from overtightening.

the two nuts at the bottom of the box do not need to be tightened with a wrench, all they need is snugging by hand, and replacing the nuts with a pair of Wing nuts will work better.

an old post here by Asavage shows how to reinforce the box to prevent or to correct warping, I'm also going to do that fix. In other words, i'm having to reverse-engineer a bunch of stuff because of bad design, for example the sliding door latch problem, which plagues everyone sooner or later. I recently discovered the rear tailgate latch is the same part as the sliding door latch.

 

Agreed, the stock box is a terrible design. I myself have never broken the airbox, all of my vehicles came with the damage from previous owners.

I eventually plan on using a better design, but I will get that that when I have a chance to sit down without any urgency.

 

i've seen some air intake substitutes for Aerostar (by K & N) at eBay. I have been using a K&N Air Filter in my XJ-6 since 1992, it does improve engine breathing and power somewhat, but for me it's the fact that it is washable, never have to bother buying another air filter.

 

here's a picture of the 3.0 air filter box cover as it was in my 1992 Aerostar showing the raised numbers and letter:

 

My air box has no markings on it. When I got it, it also had one of the pressed-in nuts loose in its hole. I tried a number of ways to fix it, including gouging the knurls, but eventually used epoxy to glue it in place. Also, making sure the bolt threads are clean and lubricated reduced the chances that nut will work loose in the future. Of course, not over-tightening the bolts will help as well.

Further (way) off topic here, some of my friends are really stoked tonight as they manipulated the ultimate AWD vehicle onto another planet:

Mars Science Laboratory: NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain

 

darn it I missed the landing, I fell asleep waiting!

yes I also epoxied the two splined nuts/ferrules to the box, I think I have one or two of those ferrules from my 1986 XL if anybody needs them. They're all the same size.

 

Khan, I found a decent Kenwood stereo for the '97 Aerostar. I want to run new wires to the speakers (also replacing the rear speakers with "better" 6 x 9's and they come with new wires although I'm not sure of the wire quality, looks very thin).

1) how do I identify the speaker wires at the radio plug and how will the new wires be wired to the plug?

2) will this cause the rear radio control to be defeated? (not that it matters, it's useless anyway and I can remove the radio control pod and make a finisher cap for the hole).

3) best place to run new wires through to the two rear speakers?

4) should the top-of-dash speakers be rewired too? (I want to be able to use them).

thanks

 

The black plug handles the speakers. When you get a radio harness adapter, it is labeled and color coded. This will help you identify which wires need to go where on the other side of the plug. Route the wires under the door panel trim, then you can feed it behind the panels If you can follow other wire harnesses, that often works best. Yes, the front speakers need new wire too, those are fairly short runs and pretty easy to do.

Chances are the wire that came with your new speakers is too short to reach from the back. Any wire of at least 16 gauge should be large enough, but the longer the run, the bigger it should be to reduce losses.

Yes, the rear controls will be defeated, which is fine since the only use it would still have with a non-factory radio is headphone jacks and the ability to turn the rear speakers off. A lot of good head units come with remotes.

On the dash, if you run 4" speakers, which are slightly larger than stock, they do work. You will have to drill new holes to mount the speaker. On mine since the previous owner ruined the dash panel by cutting a hole through it for a tweeter tower, I had nothing to loose by taking the next step. I cut the hole out larger, and installed 6" round coaxial speakers directly to the panel, I even trimmed the plastic surround so it more closely matches the contours of the dash. This allowed me to put larger, louder, more efficient speakers in. Whether you run new speakers or not, yes you need to replace the wire, it is common ground too.

 

Kenwood is a very good brand of car stereo! Good choice!

Also to find which wires are for which speakers, it should say in the paperwork that comes with the stereo, or quick search of the internet should tell you which wires go where. That is one thing you don't want to fubar, otherwise you will get weird sound experience, and being a musician, I doubt you want that.

Running new lines to your front speakers should not be too tuff, just a tight squeeze.

Running to the rear, I would either put them under the top trim pieces going back, or the bottom trim pieces, to protect and hide.

When you are done, show some pics!

 

Khan and 93nighthawk,

thanks, will do pictures.

I have removed the entire interior paneling and trim since I'm redoing the headliner, and I noticed that wires can be routed to the rear speakers through the top of the A and B pillars; there is lots of room at the horizontal rails for wiring and the B pillars allow the wires to come down exactly where the rear speakers are.

also I have two 8" 3-way speakers which I removed from my '92 when I sold it and reinstalled the original 6 x 9's instead so the buyer would be happy

I'm thinking of installing those in the rear hatch/tailgate which has plenty of depth for them. Then I think I could have decent sound. I really don't care for the dash speakers, they sound like an old AM radio!

I could wire the 8" speakers to the "front" outputs (the radio can't tell) so that when the Fader is at its center detente, I have full sound in the rear. I know that the the 6 x 9's alone are not going to cut the mustard.

 

I wouldn't bother putting speakers back into the hatch. They really are about useless, since they are so far away from any listeners. Better to focus the sound where people actually are. A good place for speakers is the front doors, of course the depth of the speakers is critical at that point.

 

ok, got the Kenwood, I'm starting the install, but there is something I don't understand:

each speaker in the Aerostar's harness has a Ground and a Hot, (total of 8 wires for 4 speakers in one of the two Plugs), so what then is Common Ground?

I was visualizing there would be only 1 ground wire for all 4 speakers. ("Common").

obviously I don't understand what Common Ground is or why people don't like it.

 

They run a pair of wires to each speaker, but the other end of the wires where they're connected to the radio or amplifier is where all the speaker grounds are connected to a common point, which is connected to chassis ground. This allows them to use a simple single-ended amplifier to drive the speakers. Those who like loud thumpy sounds coming out of their audio systems may find that this type of amplifier does not provide enough power for them. So they have to go to aftermarket amplifiers that produce more power, using a design that provides two hot wires going to the speakers. In those amplifiers, one wire provides a signal 180 degrees out of phase with the other, effectively doubling the voltage that the speaker sees, or quadrupling the amount of power that can be delivered. So you cannot connect one of those wires to ground, or you will blow that half of the amplifier.

 

thanks for explaining, I was suspecting that. Now I understand.

what I did today was to connect the Kenwood using the Aerostar's speaker wires as they are, since I ran out of wire length going to the rear speakers.

but as connected, the sound of the Kenwood is awesome, the power is twice the Ford unit's, the high fidelity hard to describe with words, even the front speakers sounded good. But I'm going to run new wires, that's a given.

 

It's hard to believe that what Ford calls "Premium" sound worse than some of the cheapest aftermarket equipment.

Back in the days when I was really into car stereos, my first system started out with a cheap Jet Sound AM/FM/cassette unit. I augmented it with a cheap 30W+30W amplifier, a pair of somewhat conventional 5-1/4" two-way speakers in the door, and one of the first 6x9 speakers using a 1" dome tweeter and composite fiber woofer cone and a solid 28 ounce magnet in the package tray. It sounded so much better than the Ford "Premium" system in the Town Cars I had been working on, I felt bad for the people buying them. (Actually, I felt bad for them for other reasons as well.)

I eventually gave up the pursuit of automotive audio perfection, realizing that I could no longer afford to keep up with the latest and greatest equipment after my Nak TD-1200 stopped working.