Speaker Wiring

[camron]

I have heard that the 85 Westy has the ground wires tied together for the rear speakers and that this configuration will not work with newer stereos. I just purchased a new Clarion MiniDisc player that has not arrived yet. I installed a new set of speakers in the rear AC cabinet and noticed that one speaker had a second ground wire spliced in. What will happen if I try and hook up my new stereo like this. Do I need to run new speaker wires all the way back there? Is there an easy way to isolate the grounds wires without running new wire? Thanks for any help.... Camron

[ben]

Hi Camron
DON'T use the old speaker wire with any new good quality Stereo, this is not just a "common ground" question. The old wire are 16 years old and are subject to wear & tear. A faulty speaker wire could easily damage the new radio. I have just finish installing a CD player with 2 power-amp and a kenwood equalizer, the new rear speaker wire are following the fridge positive wire, from the fuse boxe in the front (under the front carpet, sink, closet) to the rear speaker.
Remember that this is NOT the usual way (dificult on the right side), any signal wire (RCA/power amp) or speaker wire should never be close to any power wire (positive and negative wire), power wire should be on one side of the car/van and speaker/RCA wire on the other side. This is done to get rid of the high pitch engine noise (in the speaker) when the engine is running, especially when the head light are ON. But if you don't use a power amp or a high power radio, there is no need to for that step.
Ben

[camron]

Thanks for the tips. I had dreaded the need to run new wire, but I guess it is going to have to happen. I am using a Clarion MD player with 45W peak (20 RMS) to power these speakers. I think it shoul dbe plenty for me. Is there much room to run these around the fridge, if so, I could get some shielded cable to help the noise issue, but it is thicker.

[ben]

Hi agan,
behind the fridge there is the water line tube (coming from the water tank), i use this tube to pull the speaker wire behind the fridge, this is the only problem you will have, the rest is a easy job.
Note: i live in Canada and my water pump is under the sink, so it is easy to unplug the tube and use this one to pull the wire...
Don't worry about the high pitch noise, if you don't have a power amp it won't be a problem!!!
Good luck, Ben

[mvt6]

I am trying to rewire the rear speakers as well right now on my 84 Westy. The two speakers do share a ground and my deck will not work like that. It has definitely not been enjoyable. The thread on 9/25 addresses this issue. I am running them where they are originally placed in my 84 (above the sliding door) and it is a tight fit. To get to the wires, I took off the side inside liner without a problem. Then, I had to remove all the screws in the top liner when the wires got stuck, to see what was going on. After the first squeeze in front of the sliding door, it isn't too bad until you reach the slot going between the windshield and the passenger window.

[Capt. Mike]

I'm not into turning my Westy into a Walkman, but there are TWO different stereo wiring setups for Westies. One (Bentley 97.195) is for the standard stereo and the other (Bentley 97.197) is for the stereo with amplified speakers. That may be applicable to or explain your aftermarket setups.

[camron]

Yes, I just ran into that portion. I am using a wire snake and I cannot get it past the bend at the top of the windshield back. Aiighh!!!! I hate speaker wires. Why did they just not just run wires to each speaker? Was there an international wire shortage? I am thinking of giving up on this side. I have the wires up to the passenger roof line now, but it is getting dark and I am getting angry, so I figure it is best to stop for the night....

[camron]

I left my manual at home, I am at work now. I have the fancy stereo, the digital cassete/AM/FM version that came with the Westy as an option I believe. It was still only 9.5 Watts max per channel. I would think that all speakers are amplified speakers. I am worried now that I may have torn the insides of my Westy up for no reason. This was not the bsaic radio, but a factory upgrade. Did perhaps the factory upgrade have seperate wiring? I have what appears to be:

Passenger rear: One red wire, two gray

Driver rear: One blue wire, one gray

Any insight? Are these gray wires the grounds and are they tied together? Thanks....

[camron]

OK, Success. The wires are pulled and there is no more question of which is what. Now to tackle the spare battery today....

To replace rear speaker wire, I would recommend attaching the new wire to the old wire and installing it as you pull out the old. Just make sure to remove the jacket and twist the wires together really well, then taping with electrical tape. Make sure they are attached well so they do not come apart midway. You can actually pull two new wire sets through while just pulling out one old wire leaving a wire in place to use to install any other wiring you may want to run to the rear of the vehicle. This is the simpliest way by far in my opinion.
In my case, the previous installer left in place a few wires to nowhere, which made it confusing. Once that was sorted out, installing new speaker wires was a snap.