Speaker Wiring

Looks like you have the meter on the right setting. Can't tell if you have the probe in the right socket in the meter, out of frame. Sometimes you have to hop contacts to switch modes.

If you think the speaker is hooked up to the other end of those wires, then you're probing the right place- and it appears there is a break in the connection between the meter and the speaker.

Sanity check: touch one probe to the other. The meter should swing to 100% (zero resistance)

...and just to point out- your test of line power in the house does not require the meter to have a good battery. However, the resistance test of the speaker does require a good battery in the meter.

 

Your meter has a dead battery.

 

OK you won't normally see activity on the meter in resistance mode when trying to look for output from the stereo. You ought to get some minor twitching if you change it to one of the 15V ranges but it's likely to be faint as that's still kind of a high range. Worth trying though.

 

Guess: Somebody installed a really nice set of speakers in this car, including a set of separate tweeters. They cut the wires at the kickpanel to accommodate a crossover pod, and then ran the pass-through output from the crossover back into the door.

Then they were a bit hasty backing it all out and putting the OE gear back in, and I bet his new car sounds great.

 

Seen install shops done things similar and worse, funny how you wouldn't think pro shops not do this kind of thing.

 

I think you should get the head unit out again anyway. Then put the meter in resistance mode and do a continuity test on the front speaker lines. Free bonus: you'll get positive confirmation of polarity at the kickpanel so you can tag the wires or make your own color chart.

Get into the body side of the 10-pin shell on the head unit, the one that has the stereo power & front speakers. You should be able to get continuity between headunit-pin-2 and kickpanel-pink, and also from headunit-pin-6 to kickpanel-violet.

Oh, just back-checking something... your photo on post #46 shows a connector block with the two cut speaker lines dangling and disconnected. Was it still disconnected when you did your voltmeter test? I do think that needs to be plugged in..

 

Door & dash are wired in parallel on the front, so you'll only see one pair of wires (+/-) for each door. |'m not certain, but I think the connector block you pictured in post 46 is where door and dash separate. I think the door & dash lines are in the "near" plug (frame left) and the actual stereo outputs are in the "far" plug. (frame right) This block is where they get split in parallel.

 

For that test, you would click the kickpanel connector back into place, connect either red or black meter probe to the pink cut end, then remove the head unit, and put the other meter probe on pin 2 of the 10-pin connector. Needle should go full over to zero Ω on the top scale.

Move the both probes, one side to kickpanel violet cut end, other side to pin 6 of the 10-pin behind the head unit. Should get the same result.

You could, but it does depend on being certain of which end is which. You've already got an if.

 

I put some labels on one of your photos to help explain what I think is going on. Please don't take it as guaranteed-factual; I'm not looking at a wiring diagram. See if it helps clarify my other responses?

 

Look up "backprobing." It's a less-destructive technique for this kind of test. Nice meters come with sharper probes, but really all you need are a couple of stick pins or straightened staples, and you can get started too. Probably lots of youtubes showing how.

 

Just poured my first cup...so be patient please. Obviously someone did some kind of major hack job and made a big mess. We still haven't identified that the "original" pigtails/plug is the correct one or why it was there. Step back for a minute and look at page 2 of the print...only...for now. If those wires you exposed behind the kick panel are actually at plug Li1, there will be at least 11 (eleven) pins, but likely more. First red flag...how could the installer power the remote start off speaker wire outputs.and why? Second red flag is the mess with the door speaker/wiring. Why are there 2 blue wires going to the speaker...if I see your 4th picture correctly.

As to your last post...don't check "resistance" back to the head unit (HU) unless you disconnect the dash speaker first. You are sending 9 VDC back to that speaker/capacitor and the HU. You can check for volts output with VDC selected on your meter though.