I recently bought a 1990 B2. The Receiver/Radio/CD player was a hatchet job install by the previous owner. It had a plug with really thin wires and nothing matched the colors at any speakers. I'm assuming it may have a factory external amp under the dash someplace (can't see to tell). Anyway, I rewired it directly for the speakers and it works great but there is one problem. When you turn the lights ON it momentarily shuts down and starts back up then will be powered as long as the lights are turned on. I'm guessing I have a power lead wired to a light circuit but it works fine without the lights and only when the key is on (unless you turn the ligts on). Make any sense? Looks like another pull and check job. Wish that owner had not cut all the pluigs off the factory harness!

 

Yikes. I'm not sure if there is anything in the drawings online or in the Haynes / Chilton's manuals, but what it sounds like is that you have something incorrectly connected -- i.e. your hot lead is connected to a common hot lead that momentarily droops in voltage when you turn your lights on.

I forget what's what, I'd have to pull my aftermarket Alpine (with wiring harness, since I did my own and wasn't about to cut anything for the obvious reasons) out to look. You may have to trial and error it, or take a voltmeter or test light to check what's what in there.

 

i had the same problem in my 86 b2.i used a test light to check all the wires,i had 2 wires crossed.fixed that and now it is working good.you can get a test light for about $3.it will help find the problem faster

 

Ok, but here's the issue. I checked the connections before the wire splices and connected the leads as described in the Alpine literature. I'm just wondering if it is the Illumination lead (connected that to the Ford harness lead that went hot with the lights). Guess I have to pull the thing again and start over with the power leads. Speaker connections are fine.

 

Not sure if any place sells them or not, but what you could do is go junkyard shopping for the pigtail ends to restore the factory harness connectors....

Just looked, no parts sources I know of offhand sells replacement harness pigtails, and I don't have time right now to look further.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

 

I figured it out, I had the power wiring wrong. Works like it is supposed to now. It would have been much easier had the previous owner not butchered the harnesses. I had already rewired for the speakers (front and rear) so going back to factory pigtails was not an option I was willing to fall back on. I don't know what the one power (hot) wire is for in the factory stuff but I found the correct ones for "Battery" and "Ignition" and that's all she wrote for that problem.

Thanks for the replies.

 

glad to hear you got it figured out! so that makes 2 idiots out there to butcher the wiring,i dealt with the same thing on my mine except there was nothing there but the loose wires and no pigtails...

 

I hear that. Mine had nothing but wires and the person had two sets of wires running from the radio to the rear and two speakers in stupid plywood boxes (not nice finished but plain rough cut plywood). I think my B2 had the factory AMP because nothing match in gauge or color. I have no idea where they (Ford) hid the AMP or what it even looks like. I ended up rewiring all the speakers directly or through the harnesses get everything to work. The factory power wiring had about 4 wires that were hot at one point or another and I guess I guessed wrong the first time.
Seems some people like things the hard way instead of just leaving things alone and spending a few bucks to get the correct adapters. Now I'm faced with the thought of buyingh a better CD player but I have no idea what sterio was in and that determines what harness you need. Plus then I'd need to rewire factory plus back on the butchered harness. Sometimes you just can't win (story of my life).

 

I don't think any of the B2s had an external amp. I know some vehichles do, though... like my '04 Tacoma has a head unit and external amp. Just good to hear you figured things out. I know I had this same issue when I put a radio, etc. in my '95 Nissan truck. I bought it used from a dealership, and I guess it was a repo that the stereo was either stolen out of or just ripped out of. It was a mess, all of the wiring was cut off and no factory harness connector(s). Took a lot of tracing and testing with a meter/light. I'd like to eventually find a junker to pull the connector out of, but, I'll probably just make my own setup and/or pull the dash apart completely and run better wiring *shrug*

 

> I don't think any of the B2s had an external amp

BIIs have an external amp mounted under the dash near the center speaker. It is accessed from the storage space over the glove compartment. It was there on the premium sound on my XLT.

 

Some in the '89 and '90 do if they came with the premium sound system. You can tell by one of the two harness connections. The one with the amp has a gray cable that is a shielded cable containing about four or six small gauge wires. The standard system has two connections with just taped covering. Where the shielded cable leads to I can't figure out but it is for an external amplified system. This was only offered in I think '89 and for sure '90.

I got the original harness pluigs and a section of the leads today from each setup and they are deffinetly completely different. If anyone knows where they hid the amp I'd like to know.

 

Ok. I have 4 speakers, Right & Left, both front and rear and no center dash speaker in my '87 XLT. Mine had the digital AM/FM/Cassette player. I have a feeling that what you're all thinking of as an external amp is probably just wiring, etc. to draw off a "center" channel for a center-mounted speaker in a 5-speaker system... because most systems with external amps have wiring between the head unit and amp, and the amp itself has the only speaker connections, as far as I know of on any make/model vehicle *shrug* I'll have to look this one up..... and I think rebocardo already answered your location question

 

Found this in the tech thread http://www.installdr.com/Harnesses/Ford-Wiring.pdf
. As the initial info states there are several Ford wiring variations. I don't have a camera to take pics of the harness differences, nor do I know how to posts them if I did. But trust me there IS a difference depending on your system in an '89 or '90 at least. The small shielded cable contains wiring that does not corerespond to any color coding on any speaker and the second plug has mostly power related wires and no speaker. Walla, the small cable goes to the amp then to the wiring harness and speakers. I'll have to look to see if I can find the thing but I have no center speaker and original paperwork and wiring dictate the amplified system.
No major issue at this point, I rewired to make it work but may want to put it bavk and reinstall the plugs as they were before they were hacked by a redneck radio installation.

 

Ok, just thought I'd update in case anyone may be interested in knowing. Wife bought a new Alpine CD for the B2. The paperwork tells me the factory amplifier is located behind the left rear side panel. That's probably the box I saw when I spliced speaker wires I now need to put back as they were. This amp is only on models that came with a factory premium sound system. Explains why the dash harness wiring wasn't even close to the actual speaker wire colors and gauges. CD came with kit to bypass the amp and that was like $40 cheaper than what you needed to use the amp.

 

Addition to last post: The amp is NOT the box on the left side, behind the panel at the rear seat but rather on the left side back near the rear of the B2. Rather far away from everything to have stashed it.