Damnit, it fixed for a couple seconds, now it is totally messed up.

My volt meter measured 12 volts on the red wire going into the stereo with ACC power, and measured 12 volts on the yellow wire going into the stereo with the key off. Both of these are as they should be.

The blue and white remote wire measured 0 volts, even with the unit on, NOT as it should be.

So, today I stripped a bit of the wire away and touched the blue and white remote wire to a stripped away section of the 12 volt accessory red wire.

I heard the click, my amp in the trunk turned on, my bose turned on, I got beautiful sound again. All was well. I taped up both wires where I stripped them and tried it out, turning it on, off key in the ignition, key out..etc. Everything worked as it should, it clicked on and clicked off perfectly. It is almost like it just needed a little jump and that got it working perfectly again.

SO.................

I set that aside for a bit and work on hooking up my plastic bins and my auto climate control back up to that center console frame, and figure I would try plugging in the head unit again to try it. This time, it clicks on both my amps as soon as it is plugged in and the head unit doesnt turn on at all. There are no blown fuses. Now with this plugged in my volt meter bounces between 4.8 and 5.3 volts in a steady rhythm on my remote wire, my red wire when acc is turned on, AND my yellow battery wire.

I can't find any shorts in the wires at all. Could this just be a faulty headunit?

 

Ok, both problems as described in the post above are intermittent, it is either one or the other. I have ruled out it is not the head unit either because I purchased a new one and the same problems result.

 

The ground wire looks fine to me. The only thing is, it runs through this "premium sound line output converter." If any of the 4 bose amps were out would it cause these problems?

The problem is definitely in the car, not the head unit. And I have tried so many things already, checked all the wires, none of them are shorting and I've tried shaking them all around and everything just incase but there still is no change. This is incredibly maddening because NOTHING about any of it makes sense. I ****ing love this car to death too, but with all these god damned electrical problems I may end up flipping my **** and getting rid of it.

 

I just noticed that you said the new kenwood unit reacts the same way as the old one. Leave the remote wire that comes out of the Kenwood (blue/white) disconnected, Connect the 12VDC directly to the bose amp wire and the subwoofer amp wire only. Connect one at a time for testing.

If it does not work connected this way then you know its not the head unit causing the problem. If the blue/white remote wire is connected to the amp wires and 12vdc that means the head unit is still connected and can still be causing the problem.

It's not a good thing to connect the 12VDC to the Kenwoods remote wire. But it is OK to connect it to bose amp relay or the subwoofer amp wire.

 

im thinking you might have a short somewhere in the remote wire for the subs, howd you run it? it might have gotten pinched.

 

I agree that is a very good possibility, thats why he needs to connect the bose amp wire and the subwoofer amp wire to the remote wire one at a time for testing. Also the remote signal in the Kenwood has some protection so that if there is a short in one of the amp circuits it shuts down. That is why there is no fuse.

My guess is the problem is with the sub woofer or subwoofer wiring and not the bose amps/wiring and not the headunit. Try using the Kenwood without any of the subwoofer connections to the head unit .

 

With the Bose and sub amp relays disconnected from the remote turn on blue wire; do you 0V, 5V, 12V or error (may be dashes) on the DVM display?

 

Ok, I have come much closer to pinpointing the problem.

As it stands now, it appears as though my ground wire is not reaching ground. The way the harness is set up, the black ground wire from the stereo goes to the most bottom right wire in the smaller harness connector to the car, which is a grey wire.

For some reason this wire is not grounded as it should be. Are there any grounds that have to do with this harness that I can check?

 

i thought our radios were grounded at the brackets and antenna? u should just connect that ground to the body somewhere.

 

According to the wiring diagrams that grey wire is a ground. You can just run the black wire directly to a bolt/screw to a metal part of the car such as a bracket or frame.

You should consider connecting the bose amp wire and the subwoofer amp wire to the remote wire one at a time for testing. See if just the bose or suwoofer will turn on.

With the Bose and sub amp relays disconnected from the remote turn on blue wire; do you measure 12VDC between the remote wire and ground? This is what you need.

 

Since the turn-on signal is 5V or 12V, there is a PNP transistor (or a P-channel FET) inside the HU at the output. Like speakers, when you parallel two relays, the effective resistance lowers (V=i*R) and the amount of current sourced from the transistor goes up. So the 2nd relay may have cause the turn-on signal output transistor to overheat and fail.