Speaker ground?

[cuda65vpt]

Finally got the plastic kick panels made by 66Dvert and 6" kenwood speakers in my 66 Barracuda and the radio is not very loud and lots of static. Should the speakers be grounded?

I ran two strand speaker wire to each speaker and spliced the speaker wires together connected to the speaker connection on the original AM radio. The speaker wires from the radio, one is a black wire and the other is (dark green?), hard to tell color in the lighting conditions. Does the original sound system rely on a ground at the speakers?

 

[68gtxman]

No ground. AM is very static filled to start with. If anything, your antenna may not be up to snuff.

 

[cuda65vpt]

Thanks, I was just out there messing around with it and I think it was dust/dirt in the radio ground. Gave everything a snug and it started playing pretty decent.

 

[jhdeval]

I think your issue is actually something different. I believe you may be having an impedance issue. I do not know what the impedance is of the original radio but standard is 8 ohms. The speaker is my 65 Barracuda ran a single wire to the radio and one to ground. If you wired both speakers by splicing them as you say then you are actually doubling the impedance. This does 2 things it causes the amplifier in the radio to create more heat and second less sound to each speaker.

I could be wrong and my car audio knowledge is getting aged but try hooking 1 speaker up and see if the volume is louder.

 

[67Dart273]

I think your issue is actually something different. I believe you may be having an impedance issue. I do not know what the impedance is of the original radio but standard is 8 ohms. The speaker is my 65 Barracuda ran a single wire to the radio and one to ground. If you wired both speakers by splicing them as you say then you are actually doubling the impedance. This does 2 things it causes the amplifier in the radio to create more heat and second less sound to each speaker. I could be wrong and my car audio knowledge is getting aged but try hooking 1 speaker up and see if the volume is louder.

Not clear to me how the op spliced them.

If you splice them in parallel, this cuts the impedance in half for two speakers, assuming they are equal

If you splice them in series it doubles the impedance of the two

So two 8 ohm in parallel is 4 total, if the two are in series, then 16

No easy way to deal with older radios. "Fader" designed for the combination is one

Another is to use an amplifier

or experiment...........Try one see if you can live with it

Try them in parallel, then in series and see what's best.

Speaker polarity matters as well. Reverse one speaker to the other and see if sound qualtiy improves.

 

[cuda65vpt]

The new speakers have different size blade connectors. Using that and the tracer stripes in the speaker wire, I am sure the speakers are wired the same to both sides. Here is a crude sketch of the way I wired them.

 

[cuda65vpt]

Just checked the box and the speakers are 4 ohm units, and my thinking is I have them wired parallel.
In order to wire in series I would connect the two blacks from the speakers together and break the other wire one to each of the radios wires. Right?

 

[pishta]

parallel is sp + out to a splice running to both speaker + terminals, same for neg wire. Dont ground speakers to chassis, let radio do this as to obtain common ground plane. Series would be like a battery, daisy chained spk + out to sp +, then its - to next sp +, then its - back to spk - line from radio. Note impedence

ground is through radio, not "floating ground".

 

[68gtxman]

No. You would need to wire them in a loop to be in series. You correctly wired them in parallel.

 

[cuda65vpt]

It sounds OK sitting in the garage with no outside noise influence. I will try the series method just to see if it is better still.

 

[67Dart273]

I would for certain try them in series. "Thanks" Pishta. You want the right hand diagram for series.

 

[cuda65vpt]

Switched to series and it sounds even more better.

Then I tried to start the car and heard an electrical type pop. No power now from the key to the starter relay. I can bypass the relay and get it started so I guess the wire through the firewall is the culprit.

 

[67Dart273]

Uh oh, LOL. ANY power in the car? Headlights?

 

[cuda65vpt]

Yeah, everything seems to work except the starter. I have power through the firewall, never heard of a relay going bad but that is what it seems to be.

 

[67Dart273]

So is this stick or auto? Original stick relays must be grounded

Auto, the one "push on" terminal gets start voltage from the key.

Check both push on terminals when hooked to the relay "as normal" with the key in "start."

If you have power to both terminals, then the neutral safety switch in the transmission is
misadjusted, or bad, or loose connection / wire fell off

 

[cuda65vpt]

Thanks, I'll have to round up an assistant to do that test
I did think of the neutral safety and tried messing with the shifter through the shifting range but nothing. I guess it could be the key switch too, I have a spare so I'll try that first. Hope it isn't that cause all my locks match right now.