Hey guys. first post. but i'm working on my friends explorer right now,he tried to install a new head unit and couldn't figure it out. so he asked me to look at it. i've tried almost every possible combination of wires and nothing works. i've tried touching a 9v battery to the ends of the wires to see if the speakers would pop and nothing. he has a small computer speaker he's hooked up for now and it works, so the stereo is fine. the old stereo worked, so there should be nothing wrong with the wiring to the speakers, but now, with the new head unit, nothing works. does anybody know anything we can try?

 

Try and buy a color wiring diagram and phase your speakers right. P.S. Also try not hooking a 9V battery to it (it can fry sensitive stuff).

 

was the old stereo factory?
Could be that the factory stereo has an external amplifier.
doing things the cheap way I'd get access to the easiest speaker and try hooking it up directly. I can't remember what vehical it was that I ownedI ran into the problem of factory premium sound and not being able to get my new radio to work with it, no matter how I hooked up the wires, (I'm thinking it was a 92 explorer)
I ended up running new wires directly to the original speakers and that solved all my headaches. I seem to recall the problems being they needed to be low level outputs
and the left and right speakers shared a common ground, wich would not work with my new stereo, hope you get it working. post back and let us know what you found out.

 

Sounds right. If you had an amp that used low input your radio must have low outputs or it won't work unless you buy adapters to convert it. It wouldn't be worth the conversion though if your radio puts out more watts than your amp. If the radio puts out more I'd agree to just run wire. But if you want any amp features to work it has to be hooked up right (phased and wired).