I just pulled the rear subwoofer (just the driver side so far -- and yes I had to remove the rear seat first) and there are no positive/negative markings on the speaker.

So does anyone know if the solid black wire is positive or the white tracer wire? Also, there is very little wire left in the box and I am going to have to connect spade connectors and lengthen the wires because my new speakers have connections on each side of the speaker vs right next to each other. Any idea of the gauge?

Thanks!

 

How were the wires attached to the old woofer? If they were spade types of different sizes the large is usually the common and the thinner one plus. They do that sometimes instead of marking them.

My fair weather project is swapping out the entire system. On mine someone had put a different stereo in it and then put the original stuff back in to sell the car. Unfortunately they cut up the wire harness and wired it back up wrong and fried the amp and the head unit the LCD screen is bad. So it all has to go so I want to put better speakers in when I do.

Dave

 

Hey Dave. They were soldered on. The black to the left and the white tracer to the right. The orientation being looking at the back of the speaker.

 

According to the wire harness schematic color codes KW and KB are the "+" and color codes BG and BY are the "-".

K=Pink
W=White
B=Black
G=Green
Y=Yellow



Dave

 

I found this from an old thread.


"FYI, the solid black wire is the positive & black with white stripe is negative."

 

Thats odd that those colors don't match the harness schematic from the manual...
Unless those black wires are separate and plug into the harness elsewhere,



Dave

 

Key thing is to ensure that the subwoofers are in phase: i.e. both pulling or pushing together.
Sometimes there's a red mark on the corresponding rivet that holds the spade terminal, sometimes there isn't.


JTIS shows KB and KW as the positive, BG and BY as the negative, although unfortunately it doesn't show which side is which.


If you connect the KW and KB wires to the same terminal of each sub, and the BG and BY to the other, then you should be good.


The attached diagram should make this clearer.

HTH,
Mike

 

Thats the same thing I posted a couple of posts back but apparently it was of no use as the actual wires in his car going to the speakers were black and black/white which don't match the color codes on the XK8 schematic.


Dave

 

Hi Dave,
I've just re-read the thread:-sorry for duplicating pretty much what you posted. Was having trouble getting my response to post as the forum (or my end) was running like a snail and it looks like you beat me to it.


Madbrad, I've just taken a look at JTIS, and the above codes are carried back to the power amplifier, so perhaps a PO has extended these out using the wiring he had to hand and not percolated the correct colours through. Provided that the polarity convention is maintained through the change then it will still hold good, although I'd check rather than assume that.


Mike


P.S. Dave - good to see you got the lady's ECU sorted. You're getting some pretty extreme temps over there atm..

 

Just wrapped up the job and the speaker sound fantastic. Just say'n but the Earthquake shallow 6.5 subwoofer fits perfectly. Exact same size, same hole pattern. I did take some liberty with the wiring. I put spade connectors on the new speaker, added about a foot of 18g wire I had around the house and then clamped on the 22g gauge (hardly any to work with) coming out of the speaker box. Worked perfectly. I did use the old ring. Sounds awesome and I could not be happier. Only broke one thing which I will post shortly.


Thanks for your help!

 

Cool! I'll keep those in mind. I was going to remove the grill and make a thick wood spacer painted to match the interior and mount an 8" to that and put a metal grill over it,


Dave

 

+1
Actually, each wire is + half the time and - the other half since we are dealing with an alternating current signal.
Normal speaker convention is for the + signal to move the cone toward the listener. The speaker terminals can indentified by momentarily touching an AA (or 9v) battery to the 2 terminals of the speaker. When the battery moves the cone toward the listener, each speaker terminal matches the polarity of the battery that it is connected to. This should work with any normal speaker convention regardless of brand, or application.

 

I wonder if my wiring (solid black = -, black with white tracer = +) is because I have the Harmon Kardon upgrade. The speakers I removed were clearly original and it did not appear anyone had been in there before me. Also, I did not have spade connectors on the original speakers. (There was a spade connector receptacle (both the same size), but my wires were soldered in place.) Again, it appeared to be the original configuration.

 

Odd. Definitely doesn't match the JTIS colour codes. They changed in the 2000 electrical guide but not to the ones you've found. Wouldn't be the first error in there, mind.
Was tinkering in the boot tonight refitting the infernal SLCM and I checked the wiring on the sub, and FWIW it tallies with JTIS for the year. OK, I know it's a coupe and not the ragtop but the schema colours seem to be correct for that at least.
Main thing is you're up and running and glad to hear it's worked out so well. There have been a few discussions about getting a better 'kick' out of the convertible subs so you may well trigger off a rash of upgrades.

Best,
Mike