i put in a head unit that i took out of my old car, new wiring harness and new pioneer 6 1/2 inch speakers in the back of my 89 gxe, turn on the head unit, no sound from the back speakers. i know its not the head or the harness cause im sure its crimped correctly, and i know its not the speakers cause they worked in the old car... how are the speaker wires run to the back of my car so i can check and see if i have bad wires or if they are split or what? thanks.

OK rewire your car from the HU to your speakers. Did you remove the stock amp? If not read the FAQ's and look for Craig Brace's website.

Check to see if you hooked up the amp turn on circuit.

whoa whoa wait a minute, my gxe didnt have an amp. i had the active speaker version, and if i do have an amp, i cant find it lol... wow im lost

amp in between the 2 rear speakers IIRC.
black box or somerhin,
Dunno it's late
Goodnight

nope nothin there... hmm... is it needed?

Not there? It should be mounted in the trunk between the speakers. Is there at least a wire harness hanging there? I found the best way was just to run new wire from the HU to the rears.

My '91 had the Bose system, which was a wiring nightmare, so I ended up just attempting to bypass the two rear amps, but each time I tried something new, a new problem would arise.

Finally I gave up, and brought it to a shop where they wired it up for $30 something. I still don't have any subs, but with the Bose wiring now completely bypassed, future upgrades shouldn't be that hard.

Bose system = nightmare. If you had Bose originally....nothing works the way you expect. (I'm guessing not, since you said 6 1/2 in the back...I had 6x9s for a direct screw in)

It's a round amp about 6" in diameter, silver in color mounted near the left hand rear speaker. If it's not there, their should be a wiring harness where the amp would be & there should be a loop connector attached to the end of the harness. If the harness is there & the loop connector is missing, that's why your rears aren't working.

Four ways of fixing this:

1) run speaker wires - PIA esp as they already exist and you're probably not going to add a big amp etc.
2) make your own loop connector (i.e splice the wires together at the harness end)
3) splice the speaker wires from the head unit into the wires to the speakers (which have returned from the amp...)
4) go to a junkyard & find a max like yours & get the amp.

If you want to make up a loop connector, here's what you need to do:

We'll say the release tab of the connector is at the top.
There are two rows of connectors.
Looking from left to right, on the top row you see two connectors, then the release tab then 3 connectors on the right.
On the bottom row there are seven connectors - 1 group of 5 & 1 group of 2.
Draw a picture of the connector and number the connectors. Top row will be 1 & 2 on the left, blank for the release tab then 5, 6 & 7 for right. Bottom row will be 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 for first group of 5 & 13, 14 for the second group.
Match the color of the wires to the numbers & using speaker wire, splice the following wires:

Connect 5 & 7 together.
Connect 6 & 10 together.
Connect 11 & 13 together
Finally, connect 12 & 14 together.

Remember to substitute the wiring colors that you wrote down for the numbers.
Good Luck

BTW: if the amp is there, make you have power going to it. It is fused with a standard 7.5 amp blade fuse mounted next to the harness connector.

got it, i just rewired the speakers from the head, thanks for all the help!