Rich Stern
Well-Known Member
Here’s the jack compartment cover. I forgot the bin was even attached to the back of this cover, so I never used it and didn’t mind sacrificing it for this project.
The pocket compartment pops off the plastic tabs on the back of the cover. The handle intendation in the plastic was an obstacle to mounting the amp on the cover, so I cut it off using a hobby knife.
Here’s the amp, flush mounted to the back side of the cover. It has to be mounting far enough to the outboard side of the panel to avoid interference with the jack hardware in the compartment.
Documenting the whole wire run would take a lot of pictures. I'll focus on a couple of examples to give you an idea of how the wiring is routed. This is the rear seat, passenger side, near the seat belt anchor. All of the plastic trim pieces on the floor of the ST, where the rubber meets the doorsills, pop off to reveal a cable routing channel.
The wiring only requires one real skill: Patience (and plenty of it), particularly for a novice, like me. This is the hardest part of the wiring. Each door has a flexible rubber conduit where the factory wires are routed from the cabin into the door enclosures. The driver's door is unique in that Ford ingrated a harness into this conduit. It took some looking and headscratching to finally get the wires safely through this obstacle course.
Behind the head unit: In my first attempt, I went directly from the original speaker output lines to the high level input interface on the Baja. But there was too much alternator noise with that setup. I followed the helpful advice I got here on the web site and inserted a line level converter behind the head unit, using RCA cables to feed the amp. Worked out great. This converter, made by Scosche, has a gain control for each wire, which has allowed me to fine tune the sound (more about that later).
More wiring. You can see the power and additional speaker wires routed through the rear cabin enclosure where the factory subwoofer and sub-amp are housed. The black wire in front of the sub-amp is tapped into the low voltage signal wire that turns on the factory sub-amp. It is routed to a Peripheral Electronics Low Voltage Trigger, which in turn supplies the +12v signal needed to turn on the aftermarket amp (the factory head unit, unlike aftermarket units, does not have a wire for this). This $15 component is very convenient and highly recommended for an upgrade that involves staying with the factory head unit/CD changer.
Here's the amp, wired in and ready to go. Notice the jack in the background. No need to move it with this install. Can be taken in and out without touching the amp.
The cool part: Flip down access. This has come in very handy as I have been testing the sound and adjusting the amp's gain controls.
Closed up, ready to rock n' roll.
The pocket compartment pops off the plastic tabs on the back of the cover. The handle intendation in the plastic was an obstacle to mounting the amp on the cover, so I cut it off using a hobby knife.
Here’s the amp, flush mounted to the back side of the cover. It has to be mounting far enough to the outboard side of the panel to avoid interference with the jack hardware in the compartment.
Documenting the whole wire run would take a lot of pictures. I'll focus on a couple of examples to give you an idea of how the wiring is routed. This is the rear seat, passenger side, near the seat belt anchor. All of the plastic trim pieces on the floor of the ST, where the rubber meets the doorsills, pop off to reveal a cable routing channel.
The wiring only requires one real skill: Patience (and plenty of it), particularly for a novice, like me. This is the hardest part of the wiring. Each door has a flexible rubber conduit where the factory wires are routed from the cabin into the door enclosures. The driver's door is unique in that Ford ingrated a harness into this conduit. It took some looking and headscratching to finally get the wires safely through this obstacle course.
Behind the head unit: In my first attempt, I went directly from the original speaker output lines to the high level input interface on the Baja. But there was too much alternator noise with that setup. I followed the helpful advice I got here on the web site and inserted a line level converter behind the head unit, using RCA cables to feed the amp. Worked out great. This converter, made by Scosche, has a gain control for each wire, which has allowed me to fine tune the sound (more about that later).
More wiring. You can see the power and additional speaker wires routed through the rear cabin enclosure where the factory subwoofer and sub-amp are housed. The black wire in front of the sub-amp is tapped into the low voltage signal wire that turns on the factory sub-amp. It is routed to a Peripheral Electronics Low Voltage Trigger, which in turn supplies the +12v signal needed to turn on the aftermarket amp (the factory head unit, unlike aftermarket units, does not have a wire for this). This $15 component is very convenient and highly recommended for an upgrade that involves staying with the factory head unit/CD changer.
Here's the amp, wired in and ready to go. Notice the jack in the background. No need to move it with this install. Can be taken in and out without touching the amp.
The cool part: Flip down access. This has come in very handy as I have been testing the sound and adjusting the amp's gain controls.
Closed up, ready to rock n' roll.
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