Stereo shorts out

[mike93civic]

Ok so I've had a speaker in the xB that hasn't worked for some time now. A couple years actually. Well I finally decided to look into the problem.

The speaker is the rear passenger side(hatch area). Upon pulling the plastic back I noticed that the speaker isn't even connected to the OEM harness. I think to myself, all this time, and that's what the stinkin problem was. Well since I didn't pull everything out of the way to completely access the speaker, I fought with the 2 connectors, and finally got them together. When I finally get them together I hear a distinct electrical pop, and all sound disappears. I stupidly kept my stereo on the whole time just to have something to jam to while I worked.

I stop what I'm doing, and go and turn the key off. I return to disconnect the connectors from one another thinking I probably blew a fuse. I go back and turn the key to acc and the head unit comes on. I guess I didn't blow a fuse after all. Then sound is coming through the speakers. Basically if I connect the rear hatch speaker it shorts the stereo out, but left disconnected it works fine. I know enough about wiring to get by, but I'm no expert.

My guess through process of elimination, is that either the speaker, or the OEM connector has a short in it. Can anyone point me in the direction of how I'd go about testing them to determine which one is the culprit? Maybe the cause is deeper than my knowledge? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[240DET]

Try taking a known working speaker and hooking it up to that connector... If your worried that might hurt the speaker, Ohm out the speaker that may have the issue.

When you say "connector" I take it your talking about the piece of plactic that holds the 2 wires that plugs into the speaker... I would doubt that having a short in it, but you could always Ohm that out while your back there.

EDIT:

It sounds like your Headunit is going into "protect" mode, so something shorting out would cause this. You said you have some knowledge about wiring so I'm assuming you know how to Ohm something if not feel free to ask... Or Google it, that works to.

 

[s10tuner86]

Idk if your head unit is stock or not but a lot of the newer style now have a fuse in the back, might be worth it to check into it if you have one.

 

[mike93civic]

I figured it out last night.

When the speaker was installed, the shop placed the basket in such a fashion that it ended up knocking the ground wire off the speaker itself, leaving only the positive side connected causing my shorting out issues. At the same time both the positive and negative terminals were coming into contact with the chassis of the car, causing a second reason for the shorting to happen.

In the end I had to remove and reposition the speaker for it to work properly. All is good now, thanks for the help though.

 

[R19pt]

Stereo short

i have a switch to dissconect the power from my battery mounted infront of the backseat. only prolem is your stereo gets reset everytime.