2005 2500 head unit replace, keep infinity amp

[Oliver Closehauf]

All this time I was thinking I was going to be smart and simply put my new amp in where the old one was. It's a big ass truck, there's plenty of space right?

Wrong.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

The size of the stock amp explains why they use 1 ohm speakers. So anyway now it's on to plan B, which I guess is put the amps under the seats. Still need to put the tweeters in the dash. All the wiring.... I remember when I was young I thought this was fun.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

I have the correct Metra amp bypass harness kit. The plugs are correct, Just checked the service manual, wiring looks good. Once I have the las of the speakers in I'll hook the radio straight to the harness and verify it's all correct, but that part looks like it might just be easy. It's beer:30 now though so maybe tomorrow.

 

[Phillyrube]

Thanks for the thread...going through this with my 08. Old owner ( may he rest in peace) put 4 Pioneer head units in over the years. I can't make heads or tails over the wiring, but then my experience is radios thst you pull the buttons out on to program the station. I only have sound on the dash speakers, snd they are shot.

 

[DAVID C SHOUN]

Thanks for the thread...going through this with my 08. Old owner ( may he rest in peace) put 4 Pioneer head units in over the years. I can't make heads or tails over the wiring, but then my experience is radios thst you pull the buttons out on to program the station. I only have sound on the dash speakers, snd they are shot.

Research information on Crutchfield.com ... My '08 SLT has 3 in the dash, 6x8s in front doors and 6.5s in rear doors. If you have the factory amp.... 1) front doors are bass ONLY and 2) with an aftermarket radio, you would loose fader control. I bypassed this by wiring rear door speakers directly to front wiring of head unit.

 

[Cableman]

Just noticed this thread!
I had an 08 in which i gutted stock nav/amp and speakers. I got that amp out sitting upside down with my head under the back of the glove box lol used all sorts of extensions if i can remember!
I installed all the pac harnesses, ran the headunits rear speaker leads to the old amps location and figured out which wires were what. Dash speakers i left off.
I used a JL audio 600/3 amp to power front door jl 2 way 6x9s and a 12" alpine in custom box under rear seat. Sounded great. I was able to custom mount it just behind the glove box. Ill have to find pics on my hardrive.
If anyone needs wire colors where back of amp was to door speakers i can search my files.

 

[Cableman]

I had posted this years ago on the other site. I didnt have the dash colors cause i bypassed them but its easy to figure those out if you needed to.

Under dash behind glove box:
Rf+ gray/light blue stripe
Rf- gray/yellow stripe
Lf+ green/light blue stripe
Lf- green/yellow stripe
Rr+ green/gray stripe
Rr- green/yellow stripe
Lr+ gray/ dark green stripe
Lr- gray/light green stripe

At the doors the front match but the rears are differant.
Lr+ gray/dark green stripe
Lr- gray/light green stripe
Rr+ same as left
Rr- same as left

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Well, a week of work and crap weather later and I was able to make some headway.

I unbolted the seats to get access I needed to run the wiring for the amps. I vacuumed the hell out of that thing when I got it, but when I tilted the seats back, man what a disaster.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Pulled the carpet back to start running wires...... How the hell does change get here?

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

So I'm running wires for two amps. The 4 channel amp is going under the drivers seat and the sub amp is going under the center seat/armrest. It took me about 3 hours to get the wires ran. That was simply do to the carpet. I couldn't get it completely out of the way, so a lot of wrestling with it. I plugged the "primary" speaker harness into the connector and ran the bundle down inside the kick panel, along the door sill channel then behind the crossmember over to the other side. The loop by the plug is for running to the cross overs.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Signal comes straight across the trans hump.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Power is ran at the rear of the crossmember, along the door channel up along the left kick panel and through the speedo grommet up to the driver side battery

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

So I had the power wires ran and the carpet all folded back in place when I realized I had forgotten the grounds. Sonofa!. The amps came with an EARL connector, so soldered the two ground wires together and then to the connector. Had to use a torch. Along with that I had forgotten the sub amp's volume control wire, so I ran that too. Sanded down to bare metal, ran the screws, then gave it a shot of paint.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Here's a shot of the 4 channel wired up and ready for placement.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

I used the stock amp bracket and attached an aluminum plate to it and then mounted the crossover's to the plate. The tweeters will go in the corners in place of the dash speakers. The crossovers fit very nicely where the stock amp was.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

Supposed to rain, again, tomorrow, and I have bunch of work I need to have ready for Monday, so not sure when I'll get the next installment up. I need to get my steam cleaner ordered.

A few items worth mentioning. The front bolts for the seats came out just fine, but the rear bolts were tougher. They go all the way through to the outside. I had to hit a couple with some freeze off, penetrating oil. The inner passenger side is under the exhaust heat shield, and I had to remove it a few turns and spray into the top side, then climb under and spray the hell out of it from below. then work the bolt back in and back out, and then repeat the penetrating oil

I tinned all of my wire ends. That made connections a lot easier.

And when I was running the power cabled through the speedo grommet, my plan was to pull the full length of the cable through the grommet, until I realized how stupid that was. So just ran what I needed to the battery and adjusted the length on the inside like someone without brain damage. In my defense, I was pretty hung over at the time.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

One of the last wire to route was to the hands free mic. I'll never use it, but the next guy might. Its up at the head liner by the rear view mirror, wire ran up along the front edge of the headliner, down drivers side the A-pillar, down into the dash side access then under the steering wheel back over to the center of the dash. Had about 3 feet to spare.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

The tweeters use the Metra 72-7902 harness to plug into the factory harness. Every place including Crutchfield said there was no harness available. I checked the Metra web site and they had what I needed. I had made some adapters to mount the tweeters to so I could put them where the stock speakers were, but I was concerned that the sound would be muffled by the dash.

So I scrapped that and decided to mount the tweeters directly in the dash cover. The passenger side grill was missing a few bars so I wasn't destroying a pristine dash. Some careful cutting and judicial use of a file had the openings looking good.

I then made some backing cards out of some vinyl siding, painted the part you would see black and glued them in place. Can't decide if it looks great or looks like ass. It works.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

While I was washing all of the dash pieces I removed, I found a great spot for the subwoofer level control. Again some careful cutting and filing and I was able to get a nice tight fit. Glued it in place with some weather strip adhesive.

 

[Oliver Closehauf]

That's pretty much it. Here are some final shots. Sounds pretty fantastic. Way better than what was in there. The Alpine has 16 levels of subwoofer boost. It's all the way up.

I do have to make a shelf for the sub amp. It's just sitting on some scrap right now.