Speaker issues

[rogerthechorister]

I've been thinking about this. It's been OK for several days now, and hundreds of miles (North Kent to Croydon, Croydon to Wood Green, local running and back - a whole tankful!) but I'd still like to get to the bottom of it.

My current thought is that all the door speakers and the A pillar and D pillar speakers go off at once. I think (haven't checked yet) that one side of every speaker is at earth - not locally but somewhere in the dash. So if I have not got a good earth, all could go off at once. So I'm first going to test that there is one side of every speaker that is at earth (easiest place will be behind the head unit) then make a good earth to the head unit casing.

Then wait and see if it goes funny again.

[rogerthechorister]

No work done, still OK!

[rogerthechorister]

It went off again today. After an hour or so it came back on again!

[rogerthechorister]

I really thought I'd solved it when wiggling a particular connector as I put it in behind the radio let the original Volvo speakers come on - but no it wasn't that connector. Putting a temporary van box speaker on the passenger seat and trying it on the 4 pairs of speaker wires proved that plugging the Volvo speakers in turned the power section of the head unit off. So I made a rats' nest with some choc-block so that I could disconnect the Volvo speakers one at a time until the head unit came on. It was the right hand front door speaker that was doing it. Dismantle door and Lo! and Behold! A speaker wire had chafed through its insulation and was shorting to earth. Insulate wire and refit and all works. All that remains is to make some nice solder joints in place of the rats' nest.