I got 4 new Rockford Fosgate 6x8 speaks for my excab B3000 and went to install and busted out the volt meter to find the positive wire. On the first speaker I got a reading of +11.5 and the other way -11.5. Great I say, I put her in and move on to driver back side now. Again bust out the volt meter, but am confused!!!!!! I am getting a constantly changing reading averaging from +2 to -2 back and forth back and forth speratically. I then ground the meter to a seat bolt, and get a +4.86 both ways I believe, I don't understand? Do I have 2 positive wires? I get sound out of speak both ways? Am I going to have to trace wires to the head unit? Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks for any help in advance, Nik.

 

yea tonight im doing the exact same thing,wierd. but i got sound out of mine both ways too...i dont know if you knew this or not but if u hook them up and the speaker sucks in you have the wires on backwards..but i got clear sound out of both ways of hooking them up...if you figure it out before me tell us what you found out! thanks

 

LoL, I know what you mean. They both have power going to them which will light up a volt tester. I don't remember how i found it in my truck but searching may help but a lot of times its for every model and year EXCEPT for the one you own, it happens to me all the time. But just like stated above, they will work whichever waht you have it but when you crank it and it sounds like sh!!t than switch it and try it again, obviosly the better sounding way is corrent.

 

they sound veryyyyy similar and its hard to tell

 

At first mine did, than I almost maxxed out my HU and than could tell the difference. LoL.

 

yea i just got the stock cd6 but thats soon to change...

 

Oh, not the only one it seems, so what you are saying pineapple is that this is normal and it isn't that my headunit is wired wrong? Doesn't make sense having two positives. Thanks for the help, really wanting to get those speakers in!

 

Oh yeah, hey willis a piece of advice would be to sell the stock head unit on ebay, mine had the cd player and I sold it for like 80 or 90 bucks, and I got my head unit, adaptor, and space filler adaptor with warranty from Crutchfield. Just a Cd player made by panasonic and only puts out like 200 watts but it works for me!

 

Its normal, did you happen to search and find any results yet on the color configuration for it? Its not the head unit that is wrong but you gotta remember that pretty much all wires have power in them and once you complete the circuit the power moves throughout it freely. I'm sure there is gotta be a better way than trying to find which one gets distorted but I have yet to find one heh.

 

If you have an aftermarket deck pull it out and look at what colors the solid purple, green, white, and grey match up to across the harness. Those will be your positive wire colors. The wires that correspond to the striped versions of the colors mentioned before will be the neg wires. Let me get the service manual out and see what it says. be back in a bit

EDIT: FROM MY 2000 SERVICE MANUAL~most likely still the same

Positive speaker wires:
Right Front (DG/OR)
Right Rear (OR/RD)
Left Front (LB/WH)
Left Rear (GY/LB)

Negative speaker wires
Right Front (WH/LG)
Right Rear (BN/PK)
Left Front (OG/LG)
Left Rear (TN/YE)

 

Thanks ShadyLuke, seems that answers to most things are right in front of us huh? Well I will post a update once all speakers are in and let you know how that color coding you gave me works out. Later........

 

heres a little tip.... get universal speaker harnesses, best thing so that your not cutting up your wires... cost like 6 $ a pair, and they slide right onto the barbs of the speakers...

 

Yeah those speaker harnesses are great. hope it all works out well for you

 

Installed the new speakers according to shadyluke's wire specs, and all is well, sounds great, clean crisp sound. Thanks for all the help.