83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

My '87 TA came with a factory sub amp with a switch and slider on the dash above the radio to control it. It sort of looks like the wiring just adds a set of jumpers between the head unit and speakers that wire in the sub amp, but I can't seem to tell for sure, and am trying to avoid taking more of the dash apart to find out.

What I want to do is to use the factory speaker wiring to connect an aftermarket head unit and just get rid of the factory sub amp/switch... is there an easy way of doing it?

86_sportcoupe

Could you post a pic?

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Not really, it's all extra wiring buried in the dash besides the switch, I was hoping that I could either pull out some of the harness easily or jumper it or something to get it working.

BluFBdy

iTrader: (1)

to bypass it i would personally just pick up some speaker wire, and run wires from the deck to each speaker indiviually, theres probably a way to jumper it im not entirely sure though, you could take the switch and wire out completely, im not sure of its location either but you could probably fab up a plate cover or leave it if you choose to

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

ARRGG... this is painful... this car isn't really transportation, it's a track toy/street toy. It's heavy enough as it is, it doesn't need more weight in cabling or whatever, but would like to put a simple, decent sounding setup in it to listen to when on the street. Running new wiring would only be cool if I got rid of all the original wiring, which makes the question more relevant... and if I was going that far why not just figure out the original wiring and use it?

So really, no one here knows about the factory setup?

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Are there wiring diagrams available somewhere?

redcamaro1988

go to modifiedlife.com or google the year and model (ex 91 camaro radio wiring diagram) thats where i get all my diagrams when I need one

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

I actually found one in the shop manual that I had laying around.

Now I'm even more confused (and usually I'm pretty good with this stuff). I played with it today also (found the head unit that was in my '87 formula that I wired to a wiring adapter so I could just plug it into the harness... Somehow it piggybacks in there, there are the standard 3 black, white and blue plugs like my other 3rd gens had, then there is a black plug that all 3 of them plug into and there is a second gray plug that reproduces the 3 black, white and blue plugs in one plug.

I can plug the adapter harness on my pioneer right into the 3 colored plugs and it seems to work, and I can also plug them into the black plug in the harness and then plug the adapter into the gray plug and it also works. The thing is that that part that appears to be a piggyback adapter appears to be spliced into another harness that I can't figure out because parts of it run behind parts of the dash that aren't easy to remove...

83 Crossfire TA

iTrader: (2)

Alright... I just figured it out and am posting in case someone else is trying to figure it out.

The stock wiring without the amp is all there, with an additional light blue and dark blue added that goes to both back sail panels to power a sub. The additional harness that I mentioned above is just that- a piggyback that plugs in between the back of the factory head unit and the factory speaker and power wiring. In the radio pod there is a large gray plug that plugged into the back of the head, large black that duplicated the head plugs to plug the black, white and blue normal harness plugs in, and a white lug that connects the leads that go back to the subwoofers in the sails. It goes up inside the dash, over and around some braces, and then comes back out on the passenger side where the sub amp was mounted. There it has a white plug that goes into the sub amp, and a black plug that plugs into the harness that goes back through the dash, comes out by the steering wheel to feed into the row of switches under the gauges (sub switch and slider, defroster and trunk release).

Because of the way it goes through the bracing in the dash and the size of the plugs you can't remove it in one piece without removing the whole dash and taking apart the dash supports/bracing. I ended up cutting it in the middle and then you can just pull out both ends, it's not held by anything up in the dash.