So, i just put a Kenwood HU in my truck and it has the factory subwoofer in it (the truck, not the head unit).

I got all of the neccessary harnesses from crutchfield and everything seems to be hooked up properly.

But the problem is that the factory sub doesent work.

I have the harness with the four wires coming out of it (ill put a picture below) and its all plugged in right.

The question that I have though is what are those two blue wires with the white stripes for? It says that they are amp on wires, so we just taped them down. I kind of think that my factory sub not working may be connected to those two wires.

Are they supposed to be connected togeather? I ask this because they are both the same color (blue with a white stripe)/

Is this the reason that my sub isnt working?

Here is the picture of the harnesses. The one in question is the smaller one.

 

The factory subwoofer has it's own amp. Are you getting power to the amp or just running wires to the sub speaker? It won't work without an amp powering the sub speaker.

 

I didnt know it had its own amp.

How and where would I hook those blue wire up then?

 

Those two blue wires need to be spliced together and then spliced into the blue/white stripe wire on the bigger harness there in the picture. The blue/white is what tells the factory amp or any amp that it needs to turn on. The RCA wires you have hooked up are giving it the audio signal but it still needs to know the stereo is on and to turn on.

So look at your bigger harness and you will find a blue/white wire you are not using. Splice that into the two other wires on that smaller harness and it will power up and work.

While you have it like this though, you may want to wire in a resistor between the two wires from one harness and the one wire on the other harness. The aftermarket deck will provide a bit too much power to the amp and will cause the sub to pop once each time you turn the truck off. If you don't care, then don't worry about it, but otherwise head to radio shack and wire in a resistor between those wires.

 

Could the pop potentially hurt anything, or would it just be an annoyance?

Also, on the harness there is no blue/white stripe wire, but the red wire is powered when the truck is turned o , so that would be the correct wire, right?

 

No do not use the red wire. That is not the correct way to do it. And no the pop can't really hurt much, its more of an irritant than anything else.

On the big harness there HAS to be a blue wire of some sort. You should have all of the following:

Red - 12v switched power
Yellow - Constant 12v for memory
Black - Ground
2 White, 2 Grey, 2 Purple, 2 Green - Speaker wires
Orange - Illumination

There may be a few others than that but htere has to be a blue wire in there somewhere. It may not have the stripe on it, but the blue wire is the remote turn on wire. Keep looking and I'm sure you'll find it

 

Found it and its hooked up correctly.

Thanks a bunch guys, that really helped.

So I guess it really doesent matter if it makes the pop noise if its not gonna harm anything then?

 

I just happen to stumble upon this site and I myself just installed a new Head Unit. I do not have a ford F150, but I do have a 2002 Ford sport track with the premium stereo package. I used the same harness and I also have the loud pop or thud when I power up. What type of resister do I need to get as I now have had the unit working for a week and want the thud to be gone. ktmrdr85, I would recommend installing the resister....

So any help on what resister I need to stop the thud please let me know know...

Thanks.

 

Also from what I have read instead of a transister maybe all I need is a delay????

An advice let me know

 

Hi. I'm no expert, but this might be what you need instead of a resistor:
a 5 Volt Fixed Voltage Regulator (Radio Shack #276-1770).
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2062599
I found this info while doing my own research.
#2 - You will need a 5 Volt Fixed Voltage Regulator (Radio Shack #276-1770) to eliminate amplifier pop when you turn the system on. You will install this between the deck and the scosche adapter on the Amp REM Wire (Amp Remote Turn-on wire it's usually blue or blue/white - some brands may vary) Why: Because the Ford Mach deck in most cases uses a 5V amp signaling voltage to turn on the amps and most the aftermarket decks use a 12V amp signaling voltage and that will cause that annoying pop when you turn on the deck.
http://www.mustangmafia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1685

 

hate to say it but you were wrong here. There is no blue/white in the larger harness, it is in the two smaller ones for a reason. If you hooked those two blue whites up to the a wire in the larger harness, it wouldnt do anything. The amp has to get its turn on from the headunit, so you would want to wire the two blue/whites in the small plug to the blue/white coming off the kenwood deck.

 

What wires did you hook up having the same problem.

 

I wanna ask about hooking up the factory subwoofer / amp to a 2004 F150 FX4 that did NOT have the Audiophile system (was never wired for subwoofer). I ordered the wiring harness from Ford (for the subwoofer / amp unit) - it has about a dozen unlabeled, black wires. Aftermarket deck has two RCA plugs for sub out. Please let me know if this has been answered elsewhere.. Looking for some expert direction - not sure what to make of the unmarked dozen wires...