Quote:
Originally Posted by Twisted Sid
Maybe I missed it somewhere in the thread but, why did you go the way of cutting off the factory connector and then hard wiring the new head unit in? If the connector was cutoff by someone else or damaged, why not just get a new section of harness from a junkyard or a part out and splice that in? This just seems like the hard way to go about this.
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I agree, if you are just replacing the head unit, but keeping the stock JBL speakers, amp, subwoofer, etc. I’ve read that it’s possible to retain the rest of the JBL system with a new head unit, but then you’d still have a relatively crappy system. The stock speakers are junk, and the amp and head unit aren’t much better.
I did it because I used an external amp and wired the speakers from the amplifier. My head unit is basically just a pre-amp, with a tuner and cd player attached. I only used three of the fourteen (?) wires in the factory harness. I wired the remote amp turn-on myself.
Also, with my last head unit that is now 25+ years old, there wasn’t any other way to do it. It was a “dead head”, meaning it had no internal amplifier. It had no speaker outputs, just amp outputs. There was also no way to retain the steering wheel controls with the old head unit.
It was basically free to do it the way I did it. I just had to use some connectors and wire that I already owned. How much time, effort and money would it take to find a section of harness from a junkyard, functionality unknown, and then splice fourteen (?) wires?
In my opinion, the way I did it was the simplest. It wasn’t hard at all. I can’t put the stock JBL system back in now, but I am never going to do that. The JBL system is low quality compared to the system I now have.
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2004 Limited V8 4WD 183k miles. Stratosphere Mica paint, Stone interior. Too many mods to list here.