2003 Pathfinder no front sound

[Nuswimr]

I had a Kenwood DNX-5120 that I installed in my 2003 pathfinder. It fits nicely and looks good in double dim slot, but my front speakers and tweeters from the factory no longer work. My rear speakers from the factory and aftermarket sub and amp work great. I used a wiring harness and double checked my connections, they are all good. I didn't have the Bose, but I had a Clarion stereo originally. I thought that only the bose had an amplifier for the speakers. If anyone knows about the Clarion system I'd appreciate some info on it. PN2356N is the model number on the factory stereo. I'd like to use the factory speakers if possible. I could install an aftermarket amp to power the front speakers the rear seem to have sufficient power so I don't think amplification is necessary. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Towncivilian]

Looking at the FSM page EL-192, there are no amps for your front door speakers. However, the tweeters and front speakers are connected to the same wires in parallel, so assuming they're all 4-ohm speakers each door speaker + tweeter results in a 2-ohm load which your head unit will not power. You can disconnect your tweeters in the doors (open up the trim surrounding the speakers and just disconnect their wiring harness) and that would have your door speakers playing I believe. Alternatively, you can wire the tweeters and door speakers in series (which requires some soldering) but that would result in an 8-ohm load for your amp, resulting in the front speakers being quieter than the rear since the rears would still be a 4-ohm load. You could also get a 2-channel amp for either your front door speakers or tweeters and hook those up to the amp if you desire.

[Nuswimr]

Ah thank you. I would like to use the tweeters but already having an amp ran to the rear and installed I'm concerned about installing another amp. The display on the dnx-5120 already drains the battery quite a bit if I don't have the vehicle running, I keep a battery booster in the back just in case. I'm fairly proficient with a soldering iron and may try running them in sequence and adjusting the speakers to compensate. Thanks again for the reply.

[Nuswimr]

I pulled off the door panel but I am not seeing a clip for the tweeter in there, I pulled out the speaker to see the color of the speaker wires in the door. There are clips for the power windows, the gas and tailgate, the power locks, and the power mirrors, but I'm not seeing a clip for the tweeter. I wondered if it could be in the kick panel or if I need to pull off the the windshield post trim to get at it. If anyone could give me a little more direction I'd appreciate it. I have a 2003 Pathfinder made before June of 2003 if that helps any. Thanks.

[Nuswimr]

I found the clip for the tweeter it is located in the windshield post, after disconnecting the clip I still have no sound out of the front speaker in the door. The tweeter has sound coming out of it but it's very quiet, anyone have some suggestions on getting the front door speakers working again without doing anything too major preferably.

[Towncivilian]

Well, to bypass the tweeters and Bose factory amps with my Bose system, I did this:



Sorry for the sideways picture. But anyway, I cut the wires that corresponded to the door speaker wires and soldered them directly to the provided quick disconnects for hook up to the speakers. Problem is I have no idea how your 03's factory system is set up, so maybe some pictures of the inside of the door panels would help us figure this out, if you could provide them.

[Nuswimr]

I will take some pictures of what I have going on when I take the door off again tomorrow. I can tell this is going to be a pain, from looking at the wiring diagram I think they somehow spliced the wire to the speaker as the wires that go to the tweeter have a resistor on them. I'll have to trace all the wires and see what they've done, I was hoping there would be an easy fix. If it gets to be too much I may just have to spend some money and upgrade all the speakers to my liking and run new wires.

[Nuswimr]

I pulled off the door this morning and the windshield post. I took some pictures of what I found. The wires going to the tweeter are red and green and the ones going to the front door speaker are brown and black. The problem is I can't find where they are split. They are tied up with about a million other wires and without splitting open all the bundles of wires I'm never going to find where the tweeter is spliced in. Is there an easier option or an aftermarket part I could install without running new wires (which I would replace all the speakers if I do) to drive the front speaker and tweeter.

http://img221.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=i ... 131001.jpg

I tried inserting with the Img function and it didn't work so here's the link to the pics I took.

[Nuswimr]

Problem resolved and I have no idea how. I took the door off and took out the speaker in the door and disconnected the clip and reconnected it and all of the sudden I have sound out of all the speakers and tweeters. It leads me to believe that there might be a short somewhere and when 1 speaker isn't working it messes up a circuit for them all or something. I'm just glad it working now and hopefully it'll stay that way.

[Towncivilian]

That's strange indeed. Are your front speakers and tweeters quieter than the rears?

[Nuswimr]

They sound about the same I don't notice much of a difference, the tweeters can't take much to drive though and the front door speakers are 40 watts max, I would assume the rear speakers are the same as the fronts. Since my head unit is 50x4 it should drive them just fine. I'm still not sure why it happened though.

[Towncivilian]

Same here, no idea why your issue occurred.

You've got the stock tweeters, correct? I highly suggest doing the Tweeter Mod if you haven't already. It'll make your tweeters produce useful sound. It's an easy task, especially since you're fairly proficient in soldering already.

[Nuswimr]

Well they lasted for a day working perfect then I started it the next morning and they were gone again and I haven't been able to get them back. Once I sort this out I will definitely do the tweeter mod. As I can't access any of the wires cause of how Nissan bundled them I'm leaning towards just running all new wires, which is going to suck, but at least I'll know it's not a wiring problem. I'd like to try and eliminate everything else it could be first and save that as a last resort. All 4 go out at the same time though and there is very faint sound coming from the tweeters but can't hear anything from the speakers. I was thinking it almost sounded like I was losing a ground or something, I checked my ground wire and it seems good and since the other speakers work fine I can't imagine it's that, unless there is a separate ground for the front speakers and tweeter. Any ideas?

[Towncivilian]

I was mistaken and it appears that your door speaker and tweeter are wired in series according to the FSM (unless I'm just really terrible at reading schematics...) so that would present an 8-ohm load (assuming door + tweeter are both 4-ohms) to your head unit, which it would accept.

Have you checked your head unit's wiring? How did you connect the wiring harness to your head unit?

[Nuswimr]

I used wire crimps to attach the wires of the wiring harness. I triple checked my connections to make sure everything was alright there, no exposed connections or anything like that. I can hear sound from the tweeters but it's very faint and the front speakers still nothing. The speaker and tweeter are both 4 ohms. I just find it unusual that they worked great for a day then stopped the next morning when I went out to go to work. All the colors match up on the harness and I checked the wire colors in the haynes repair manual I have to make sure there wasn't a discrepancy.

[Towncivilian]

Ehh, I have no idea what could be wrong.

Why did you use crimps instead of soldering the wires?

[Nuswimr]

Crimps were much faster than soldering and a lot less messy. It only took about 15 minutes to do all the wires, shove one end in crimp, shove the other wire in the opposite end crimp... done. The wires weren't super long and I didn't a ton of room to solder, plus I've never had a problem with crimps unless you really yank on a wire hard and pull it out, even then it's a simple fix with another crimp.

[Towncivilian]

You're right about that, but why couldn't you have just done the soldering inside with the head unit's wiring harness and an aftermarket vehicle wiring harness anyway? It wouldn't take more than 30 minutes and would be a more solid connection. But I suppose if you're sure all connections are fine, I don't think it really matters too much at this point.