I have a factory radio unit with the remote controls behind the steering wheel. I am going to hook up an amp and some new solar baric 10" L5's.
I don't want to loose my remote radio controls, and I'm not sure if I need a wiring harness or any other special equipment for this. Anyone have experience hooking up an amp and subs to a factory radio with remote speaker controls?

I would like to get a seperate bass contol **** so I can adjust the bass on the fly.

 

Ok ive found my anser I had to get the line driver from bestbuy, like 30 bucks or so....you tap into the wires going to your speakers only, it comes with instructions, then you just hook up your power wire to turn the amp on and off to the actual stereo and hook up all your power wires and stuff that comes with an amp kit....

hopefully this instal won't take too long....i'm ready to rock out with my **** out!!! \m/

 

Geez what a pain in the ***! I saw once I got my factory radio out that on top it had a list of what number was what signal. The connector has less wires than what the wiring diagram says though. It list like 30 something different signals and the un-numbered connector only has like 20 or so holes. I didn't see any signals tied together so thats not it. Well I finally found a remote wire to turn my amp on. It was the second one down. I cut it, stripped it, and spliced it in with the wire going into the connector. I just attached it to my amp after i had connected it to my battery and made sure when i turned the key off my amp lost power. The line driver I was told to get came with instructions for connecting it to the negative and positve or the left and right pre-existing rear speakers in this case. I couldn't get to my rear speakers to see what wires were running to them cause the seatbelt mechanism wouldn't come off, and that tray in the back has those torx screws. I ended up cutting the wires on the drivers side that run to the back one at a time until i lost my rear speaker with radio turned on. I have found one wire but don't know if its positive or negative. I need an voltmeter really bad, anyway it was late so I have to give it another go today. All i need is to hook up the line driver now though and I'm set. Oh my airbag light came on, I'm guessing one of those wires I cut......yeah I'm stupid...grrrrrrr...
hopefully after I splice the un-nessacarily cut wires back together and take of my battery cables again the airbag will reset and the light will go out.

 

Wow I sure could have used this earlier. radio wiring diagrams

Mine was under the Fig. 63: Radio Circuit, Premium (2 of 2)

for the left rear speaker the wire colors were Grey / Light Green (+) and Grey / Dark Green (-)
for the right rear speaker the wire colors were Dark Green / Light Green (+) and Dark Green / Grey (-)

now I just have to connect my Line out RCA adapter thinga-ma-bob's wires to the left and right rear wires, and plug the rca's from my adapter into my amp, then run my speaker wires from my amp to my speakers.

oh yeah i gotta fix those wires I hacked for lack of wiring information, and hopefully that airbag light will go out....

geez next time around i will make sure i have all the info i need first......what a moron!!!

 

Use that wiring diagram at your own risk, my wires were the same colors but it didn't end up working. I went ahead and went to best buy and had them hook up the line converter. My system works now, one thing though...When I turn up the volume on my radio it doesn't turn up my sub, I don't want to have to and shouldn't turn up the gain or input levels on the amp...I wonder if this is because the line drive is just hooked up to the speaker outputs....(wouldn't this produce more voltage and increase the volume to the subs though?) hmm only thing know to do is to get a remote bass ****.... ****confused*** if anyone happens to read this ........****ideas?****

 

sounds like alot of work just to hook up subs and an amp. a aftermarket cd player coulda fixed that, and if u get the right harness i belive you could have still used the sterring wheel controls. but i can understand in an effort to save some money.

 

That was definately true, I ended up getting a pioneer dvd flip head unit, i let tweet eff with it this time. sounds great now...wasn't able to use the steering wheel controls but I got a remote and the player is touch screen anyway....

 

My friend is an installer and he said you can re-use the steering controls, you need to buy a $100 part to maintain the control connection. I am getting an JL audio stealth box for my 04 ram and my buddy said it will be no prob for him to install (said he has done newer rams with steering controls before)

 

Do you know if the controls would work the same? Like the up and down are volume, left and right..blah blah ect....