Did I just fry my head unit?

So when I bought my truck it had a kenwood touch screen in it and everything sounds horrible but worked . I pulled off the back panel to check the amp and the big plug was not plugged in. I plugged it in and the radio worked for a second. So I unplugged it again and now it doesn’t work at all. Any advice? Did I kill the head unit?

 

It’s the jbl amp btw

 

Some have found the radio won't get power unless ALL connectors for the center dash (including climate control connections) are plugged in. Do you have all of the dash connectors plugged in?

 

I believe so. I never had it apart myself and everything seems to work. I’ve had the truck for 10 months now and never had a problem with the radio working till 20 minutes ago when I decided to mess with the amp.

 

So you aren't in the dash, and didn't touch the radio, only the amp itself?

And all you did was plug in the amp wiring?

Do you have any idea how the previous owner wired things up? You may've just pushed voltage into the radio. That was not a smart decision if you don't know how a previous owner wired things.

Fortunately, a lot of radios have a simple fuse on the rear for backfeed of power, to protect it. If lucky, and yours does too, you may've just blown that and need to replace it. Else check the RADIO fuse in the fuse box. BUT not until you unplug the OEM amp.

Meanwhile, you really need to get in the dash and see how the PO wired the radio! Take pics and show us. Clearly they didn't use a traditional amp bypass wiring kit!

 

I wouldn't doubt if you find bullshit like what this guy did: https://www.tundras.com/threads/factory-jbl-amp-to-aftermarket-headunit.115510/

But definitely take pics and post.

 

It was definitely not a smart decision for sure lol. And the worst part was I knew it wasn’t but I couldn’t resist when I seen a plug just laying next to the amp. I’ll probably get into it tomorrow and see what I’m dealing with.

 

But thanks I didn’t know about the fuse on the head unit itself

 

Let us know what you find behind the head unit! But you may also check the RADIO fuse in the dash also.

Really, what you find in the dash is going to dictate what's fried. As you'll see with that thread I linked, JBL OEM system there too, if you have similar Axxess-style converter, you could've backfed power into it also, frying it. It's all guesswork until you get into the dash. If you were getting sound with the amp disconnected, you're going to find there's some customized, potentially bullshit wiring, I'm sure.

 

So I’m thinking I might just order all new everything. Just wondering if if this will work out?

 

I’ll have a shop install it for me

 

I think you'd be pretty crazy to order anything w/o seeing what's in the dash already so you know exactly what you have, and exactly what the shop will need to fight with. The last thing you wanna do is take your car to the shop, only to have them call you back, car apart, and tell you a previous owner hacked your OEM radio harness (it happens ... A LOT), and suddenly your install charge just doubled because they need to repair all of the wiring damage.

Boss is a also pretty shitty bottom-barrel brand overall. Replacing Kenwood with Boss is definitely taking a step backwards in quality, really. That's also the wrong dash kit showing on that radio, looks like it's for a single-DIN radio, and that Boss unit is double-DIN. Maybe you didn't tell Crutchfield your vehicle? It should know better. Read this if you don't know what I'm speaking about. Is the current Kenwood double-DIN or single-DIN?

If you have radio controls on your steering wheel and an amp, you'll need additional stuff. Read this reply for more info and part numbers and stuff. If you call Crutchfield and speak to an advisor, they'll tell you all this! For FREE! Basically, if you have JBL amp, you'd need the JBL-specific amp bypass harness. If you have steering wheel controls, you need the ASWC-1 adapter harness and ASWC-1 adapter module (sold separately). You may need a radio adapter harness if the previous owner didn't use one - and if they didn't, it's because they hacked the factory harness.

I think you're nuts for buying Kicker & Rockford mids. Always recommend their subs, and amps, DO NOT recommend their mids/tweets. JBL's Club series is the best you'll find for our trucks at a great price. You can basically get half off if you order now, as another member did today. See here. Don't forget the speaker harness adapters. EDIT: Crutchfield may add those adapters for the speaker harnesses automatically.

Pulling the dash bezel and popping out the radio is a 10min process, tops. It's the only way you'll know what the previous owner fecked up, and what you should buy to have a shop install. Maybe 15mins if you're having a beer at the same time. Video is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYjiJgqUlcg&t=9s

 

Oh. No. No recommend on the Boss. No. Just no.

 

Oh - and if you'll look closely at the face of your current head unit, and give me the model number, I'll dig up the manual for you to see if there's a fuse you need to replace when you pop the dash off. A lot of times the FCC and a few other sources will have digital copies of manuals for misc devices that use wireless transmission.

 

I'll help with manual if we can get a model number.

 

He mentioned touch screen so I'm going with double din. Can't think of any single din Kenwoods with touch screen.

 

Ok guys thanks. I’ll slow down a little bit and take the time to see what’s really going on. I got excited looking at stuff. The wiring interface says it for steering wheel controls. My kenwood is a double din but the boss I believe is a single din unit but it’s a floating screen so that should be the correct dash kit. I’ll pull the dash tomorrow and take some pics of things. This is all new to me. Always added upgraded radio to my trucks but had other people do it.

 

Take a gander at the front of the unit so we can get that model number from you. Don't even need to pop the dash panel off.

If the model number has worn off the faceplate, it'll be in the settings somewhere.

 

Ddx376bt

 

Excellent. Here is your PDF copy of the owners manual courtesy of Crutchfield.


https://pdf.crutchfieldonline.com/ImageBank/v20210831161100/Manuals/113/113DDX276B.PDF

 

There is a fuse right next to the main power harness on the back of the radio by the way. It's a 10amp I believe. Like Shifty said, unplug that amp to how it was before you started and check the fuse on the back of the radio.

 

Yup - here's a pic, OP, fuse highlighted in red - check to see if this is blown (probably is) and if so, have a standard 10A fuse to replace it with:

I'm very curious what you'll see when you open up the dash; trying to wrap my head around how they'd have it wired up if that amp wiring wasn't connected.

​

 

Oh, and my guess is, your craptastic sound quality is going to be one of two things: Hacked ass wiring, or they're using some kind of converter box or cheap amp to convert the signal in the truck.

That Kenwood radio is less than 5 years old, it should have ample power to drive the factory speakers ... *if* the speakers are factory. It's totally possible the previous owner also threw some shit components in the door that just ... suck!

We'll probably know which is true when you open up the dash.

 

Well it was the fuse. I replaced it and back to its normal crappy sound now lol

 

Looks like your previous owner and/or installer was a real asshole. Not a gaping, rotten asshole, just a run-of-the-mill cheapskate asshole.

Rather than spend the $15 on an amp bypass harness, they used $20 in speaker wire to run new leads from the amplifier harness in the back, up to the head unit in the dash. I can't tell if they cut the factory amp harness because of all the zip ties, electrical tape and clutter. Note those fatter wires with translucent casings at the amp, which you also see behind the Kenwood? Yup. That's them. (see pics below if you're confused)

Instead of spending $20 on an Axxess adapter harness for the steering controls and a new adapter harness for OEM radio, they dropped $5 in red T-Taps to tap off the factory harnesses and tee that into the new radio and

$64 Axxess ASWC-1 Steering Wheel Control Interface

Axxess ASWC-1.

Not the worst spaghetti I've seen. At least it seems like they probably understood what they were doing, but T-Taps suck, they cut the wire casing exposing the copper to corrode, then nick and sometimes sever the wire strands inside. Any of this - along with questionable wire quality on that translucent-sheath wire, could be sources of shit sound. And they wrapped things with electrical tape instead of shrink tube.

Shit sound could be from whatever speakers they may've installed also, if they did this much, I reckon they may've installed new speakers and went cheap on those too. Or they're using the factory speakers, and the factory speakers are blown. You can only guess w/o popping off a door panel or two.

A shop could take time to clean this up if you provide them the right wiring adapter harnesses. It may clean up the sound. I can't tell how much work it would be, and the charge really depends on the quality of shop, and your local area's normal rates. Some shops will actually do the type of shit you see in these pics.

The one thing they did right: They used a good, quality crimp to crimp the radio wires behind the dash, instead of using bullshit wire nuts.

I'm curious what's under the electrical tape at the amp - it's where they're merging the Kenwood audio/spkr output to the factory wiring to the speakers. I'm highlighting a couple of splice points here. Also pointing out the translucent speaker wire that was added, you'll also see that in highlighted in the 2nd pic to show both ends.

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Hey @ryderboy what area are you in? I'm wondering if we have someone near you that may be willing to help out on this one. If you lived within an hour of me, I'd be willing to help you clean all this crap up. It's not a total loss, not a total wreck. Nothing a couple hours of work wouldn't get back to normal.

 

Man I wish I knew my shit about all this. I’m in upstate ny. I appreciate the offer though. I have a good reputable shop I have used a few times before. Definitely not cheap but they know what they are doing

 

Sigh. Adapters. People. Use the damn adapters to keep factory wiring nice and neat and not cut up to shit.

 

Cool. We were actually just up that way recently visiting, roundabout Geneva.

It's all good, this stuff is intimidating. It was something I did for a living at one point in my life, one of the many weird jobs I held over the years.

Happy to outline what you'd want from the shop, plus details on what you need done. I'd feel better knowing how they spliced off those wires back at the amp before saying what needs to be done, but ... The shop may also want to do things different from how I would.

I'd strongly consider keeping the Kenwood head unit if I were you. I'd definitely keep the Axxess ASWC-1 black box (steering control adapter) unit. But I'd ditch all the t-taps, replace the makeshift wiring they installed, and replace the other wiring hacks with:

• Metra 70-1761 (OEM radio adapter harness)
• Metra 70-8114 (Axxess steering ctrl adapter harness)
• Metra 70-8117 (JBL amplifier bypass harness/speaker wire extension)

That should remove most of the hacky bullshit. Buy these harnesses on scAmazon, they'll be waaaay cheaper than Crutchfield!

For speakers, some killer black friday/cyber monday pricing is available through 11/28, these components would round out your sound nicely, and pull the most power out of that Kenwood head, because of the 3-ohm rating, and crossovers/caps to shape what freqs they're getting - and altogether it's cheaper than that Boss head you were looking at:

• Front doors: JBL Club 602C: https://www.crutchfield.com/p_109CL602C/JBL-Club-602C.html?tp=106
• Rear doors: JBL Club 622: https://www.crutchfield.com/p_109CL622/JBL-Club-622.html

Crutchfield will give you plug-and-play speaker wire adapters to plug into the factory wiring if you buy speakers from them. Front and rear mid size is supposedly 6-3/4" so I'm really not sure why Crutchfield insists on offering 5-1/4" speaker for your truck, they told @912 the same thing, and told me the same for my Access Cab - which also used a larger speaker.

Another Double Cab owner here is using the amplified subwoofer you picked inside their storage cubby, I don't have beef with that, but a competent shop could probably also toss a nice shallow-mount 8" sub on a baffle board in one of those cubbies too. The shop would add-on a good pair of RCA cables and turn-on lead to run from the Kenwood to the amp, and would also install a new power/ground wire from battery to the sub's amp, with a new fuse block less than 24" from your battery. You really need to feed external amps with solid power, 10 gauge to 12 gauge is plenty thick for power and ground.

Since they'd be running RCA's and dedicate power wire to the amplified sub, they may nudge you to skip the amplified subwoofer you're looking at, and instead buy a compact 4-5 channel 300w-500w amp, install it where the JBL amp is today, then use the Metra amp bypass harness to feed the amp & speakers for an easy, low-effort upgrade. Then, throw a subwoofer on a baffle board in one of the under-seat storage compartments. It's what *I* would do if that was my truck, it's cleaner, neater, less wiring, and you offload the amplification from the Kenwood to a good external amp, for cleaner sound.

EDIT: There are modules available from Axxess and maybe other companies to re-use that JBL amp, but it's 20yr old tech, and better just to replace. Just know: People who've tried to re-use the factory JBL amp without using an adapter module lost ability to use fade/balance controls, so DO NOT believe the shop if they think they can manage to repurpose the JBL amp without losing that stuff.

 

So would a shop be able to completely eliminate the factory amp? I would really like to just have the kenwood drive new door speakers. I have a kicker amp I used in my last truck for a sub and it would be nice to use that and get a new sub.