RonH

I finally replaced the factory stereo in my '92 with a new AM/FM/CD player. I bought the pre-made wiring harness so all I had to do was match colors. When I plugged it in, it sounded great. I turned it off and came back awhile later to find that everything works, but I have no sound! For frustration's sake, I plugged the old one back in and it still plays just fine. What's up?

Triton v8

You may have blown a fuse somewhere. I mean bolting up a new radio to a 16 year old wiring harness isn't always going to give you the best results. I say check your fuses and your wiring.

5.4triton

I had that same problem. The unit is still on and playing but there is nothing from the speakers. It worked fine for about three weeks. If I turn it off and let it sit and then turn it back on it will play for a bit then back off. I think the internal amp is either going out or is over heating. I have had the thing for 4 years so it may be going out. I just tossed the stocker back in for now.

Fast Hampster

5.4triton is probably right about the internal amp - that is a common failure

iRmARK88

how old are your speakers?

it's definitely not uncommon for me to see a factory radio work like a charm and then soon as you replace the radio nothing works. when no sound comes out but the radio comes on fine and everything it's usually one of your speakers is blown or grounded. factory radios just kinda work through it and have no problems (usually) but when you try to put an aftermarket in the internal amp shuts off to stop itself from gettin messed up (why it's gettin hot). all you gotta do is test your speakers with a multimeter and find out which one is grounded out or blown and then you can move from there. usually you just unhook that one speaker and then everything works perfect. its just really annoying to find that speaker sometimes lol

RonH

Thanks for the replies. I turned it on today and...it worked! For about ten minutes, then nothing again. About two miles down the road it came back on, a mile layer, nothing. There doesn't seem to be any power interruptions, just no sound. How do I test those speakers with a multimeter? They are original to the truck.

iRmARK88

you can do it two ways.

to see if it's grounded you can use the positive and negative pics straight onto the wires. you should have a low voltage and not 12v. if it's 12v then it's grounded for sure. but then there's always the chance that it's only partially/temporarily grounded (which sucks) cuz then you gotta go through and find where the ground is. it sounds like when you're driving there's something touching every once in a while which grounds the speaker causing it to shut off the amp inside the radio (assuming there are no power interruptions).

to see how many ohms are coming back and test if the speaker is blown you gotta set your multimeter onto ohms and then test right on the speaker. if it doesn't come back as 4 or 8 (or 2 if you have some upgraded stock system) then your speaker is prob. blown. you can hook it up and then push on the speaker and you should get different readings that come up to let you know the speaker's not blown. if the numbers stay the same then it's toast. but that just means it's time to upgrade : )

toyz51

One of the speaker wires is either shorted to metal or shorted to another speaker wire. Most cases it is due to aftermarket speakers in the doors where the leads coming from the posts short to metal or due to inproper wiring at the head unit itself.

5.4triton

I would suggest starting at the wiring. Make sure you have a good ground connection. Next as suggested by iRmARK88 is check the speakers. You can do that at the harness. Just set your meter to ohms (upside down horseshoe) and test each + and - of the speakers from there.

Jesse Woolard

take a 9 volt battery and touch the speaker leads. pos to pos and neg to neg. they will make a pop sound if the speaker is good. if you hear nothing the speaker is dead. hope this helps. you can also use this to trace down wires in cars that the harness is cut