s14 kade wiring problem...please help

[dlydrvn240]

Ok a little background on the car:

96 OBDII Zenki350z 18" Track Wheels/tiresKYB AGX Adjustables and Eibach ProKit 1.5-2" DropFront Door and Rear Deck speakersAlpine aftermarket single DIN cd/mp3 player

Problem: My stereo now has no output to the speakers. It will turn on and switch sources, show it is playing cd's, etc but no sound makes it to the speakers.

Symptoms leading up: Everything worked fine with my old set-up and immediately following my new springs/struts/tire swap. After putting in my new lowering springs and the tire/wheel combo it worked for a little while then one night it wouldnt play audio but after a little while it started to fine. It was at night and if i switched to high beams it would continue to play but then if i swapped from high beams back to low beams the radio would turn off but would immediately come back on and begin playing again. Finally the other day it just stopped playing audio completly. Again the radio will still come on and act as though it is playing...there is just no audio output to the front or rear speakers.

Diagnosis: I searched and lurked for awhile and the first thing i did was look under the drivers fender at the wiring harness that runs under there. I do not have front splash shields but do have the rears still in place and it is obvious it has rubbed here, however upon inspection of the actual wiring under the liner everything looked fine. No rubbed through spots or broken lines from what i can see. The next thing i did was swap out radios and the new one which i know works is doing the exact same thing. So it has to be somewhere in the wiring.

I have looked at the FSM but when it comes to wiring i am not the best and am not that good at reading schematics. Can anyone help me here and advise as to what you think it might be, as well as what i could do to try and troubleshoot. Also i have read in a couple posts that people made shielding for thier wiring harnessess, does anyone have some pics or a write-up on what they did here. I have found some info for the S13 but not much for the s14 in this regard.

Thanks again in advance for any help you can offer here.

[dlydrvn240]

any ideas or help here would be greatly appreciated.

Actually have some nice weather this week and i will try to dig into the issue as well as tuck the wires one day after work so anything that could point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

[JAAS]

DO you have an audio amp too or just the stereo was replaced?

[dlydrvn240]

Just the stereo...i had the factory amp inline but i bypassed it so now its just a straight line to the speakers. I am going to rerun all speaker lines and hopefully that will fix the issue...i just cant figure out what it could be.

[JAAS]

you could test continuity on the lines just to spare you the trouble of running them from scratch..

My next suggestion was going to be to bypass the factory amp but you already did..

[dlydrvn240]

Yeah i am not the best at electrical and testing with the multimeter...i thought about it but figure i probably wont know what i am looking at anyways.....just seems really wierd they would all go out and not just one speaker so not sure.

[JAAS]

There's another easier method, not as precise as testing continuity but at least you know if the wires are OK..

Get a AA battery, leave the speakers connected.

At the wires on the back of the stereo test each speaker pair using that battery...

Simply connect the + and - for each speaker (one speaker at a time, don't leave connected for too long, 1 second various times is all you really need to hear the sound) to the battery, you should hear a "scratching/static" sound coming from the speaker. If you do then you know the wires are OK..

You can use this method even to get the polarity of the wires, but you need another person to help you since you need to be looking at the speaker while connecting the battery..

[AK-Z]

I think its your ground. Find a different place to wire the black wire from your stereo, something metal, Like a bolt that attaches to the body somewhere.

Or just see if one of the connectors came loose.