Expert: Peter G. Lee - 12/1/2006

Question
Hey I was hooking up my subwoofer and amp to my stock system but somehow when i was bringing the power remote wire through off of the stock amp it hit the attenna and my whole radio went out no fuses popped just radio wont play only if i wire my new wire coming off the stock wire to my 4guauge power wire will it play does that mean my stock amp is gone or just that wire is bad. I f its is can i use my subwoofer amp to re-power everything instead of the rcu. thanks  

Answer
Hi Robert,
Not quite sure what you have done here from what you have written, I think you are saying you were moving the 12v signal wire from the head unit while it was on and it touched ground and now the head unit is dead, or you were moving the signal wire attached to the amp towards the head unit and it grounded.
Well there are a couple of problems here, one, I don't know what head unit you have as you haven't told me, (the fact it's a Ford is irrelevant) and have you removed the head unit and checked the two 12v feeds,(live and ignition/accessory) and is the radio putting out 12v on the signal wire when on? Is the 10a fuse sometimes in the rear of the radio OK? Are you saying that if you bridge the 12v live power connection on the amp that comes from the battery(fused I hope) to the signal connector the amp fires up and the head unit? in which case the head unit is devoid of power somewhere or you have cooked it by shorting it and may have blown a track on the radio, a quick "sniff" at the back of the radio will tell you, it is an acrid, expensive smell of cooked circuit board!
Good luck Peter
p.s. next time, disconnect the battery before doing any wiring!