Hi, here a little back story, I had a 97 f150 with a pioneer head unit
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...ers/DEH-P590IB
This one to be exact. Also a set of 6x8 infinity reference speakers. I had no problems, sounded great, no extra heat or distortion. I sold the truck and took the Infinities out. I then got an 02 f150. I swapped the stock head unit out using an adapter harness and put in a kenwood
http://kenwoodusa.com/Car_Entertainm...ceiver/KDC-152
this one. I then put the infinities in. It sounded great at first but at mid to upper volumes, the speakers would pop and crack and distort. After 10 minutes, it would be so bad, you wouldn't be able to understand it. The radios heat sink was starting to melt the electrical tape on the stock harness where it was touching. It was extremely hot. Then I swapped it out for another pioneer
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...ers/DEH-2500UI
And am having the same problem. Granted I like my music on the loud side, but it getting that hot is ridiculous. Any help would be appreciated

 

The head unit will defiantly get hot when its working hard, but your right it shouldn't be that hot.

If all of the head unit wiring is correct, I'm thinking one or both of the speakers could have a burnt/blown voice coil changing its resistance and making the head unit's amp overheat. I'm really not sure if thats whats causing your problem I'm guessing here.

You could try measuring the resistance of each speaker with a multimeter. If you don't have one you could try putting the stock speakers back in and see if the problem continues. Again I'm not even sure if this is causing your problem but its worth a shot.

Hopefully someone with more experience will chime in on this issue.

 

I noticed this with some units in these generations of f150s and expos. The problem is 3 fold form the way I look at it. #1 the area that the deck is in its quite enclosed allowing little to know air flow around the minimal heat sink. #2 There are some decks that are slightly deeper than normal again causing the air space to be deminished around the heat sink. Last #3 the decks got no internal fan. Again, no air movement.

Erik, good thinking but I dont think thats true, if that were the case there would be far more problems than jsut the deck heating up.

Bandaid solution, cut out some of the opening in the back of the dash, at very least the top (like if you were to put in a Double diin unit) its free and will help some.

Better solution, get a deck with an internal fan.

Best solution, get an amplifier and power the speakers from that and turn off the internal amp on the deck (not only will this solve the problem of the deck getting too hot but you will get much better sound.

 

Ok, here's a little update. I took your advice and ran new wire and started running the speakers off an amp. I first tried it with a Vr3 200 watt 2 channel amp. It did ok and sounded great, but over heated within 15 minutes. I now have a Vr3 400watt 4 channel amp with the gain turned up to 1/4 of the way. It sounds even better and so far hasn't overheated. I'm pleased. Hopefully this will be the end of my audio woes. Thanks for the help. Yall helped me a lot.

 

i had a problem like this where my pioneer head unit was overheating. i thought for sure i had the wiring correct. i found out after taking for warranty that the person the owned the truck before me had crossed the negatives on the speakers at he plug. we fould it when the guy at the shop came out and check the wires with a meter. switched those wires and never had another problem. it looks like you have the problem fixed, but just thought you may be interested. it seems if you ran new wire it could be possible you had something like this in the old set up.