Factory harness, new speaker wire

[urimashe]

Here is my question. i ran new wires from the front and rear door speakers to the dash, so the old wires are no longer needed, how would i go about hooking the "bigger" wires to the factory harness with out making a weak point in the wiring?

[_STUCKY]

Eeww, I got this!

Crimp on connectors with heat shrink! Or quick disconnects, although I have a couple things here that I got from napa that would work great, but I'm not sure what to call them. I'll post a pic later, might be like 10 or 12 hours, but I'll post one up. Make sure you label them so you know what's what. Masking tape and a sharpie marker would work good for that.

Did you rewire the dash speakers also?

[_STUCKY]

As promised, pictures!

I would suggest going and getting a few of these and some heat shrink tubing. I got these at napa. Take 1, clip it half, and you have 2 ends that plug into each other. Very quick disconnects!

The heat shrink isn't really needed, but I think it makes for a very clean looking install. I found some crimp on connectors that had no insulation on them that work great with the heat shrink. Sadly, I used them all and haven't been able to find them again. I am disappointed about that. Borrow you wife's/ girlfriend's/ sister's/ mom's/ co-worker's/ neighbor's/ random person on the street's hair dryer if you don't have a heat gun or blow dryer of your own.

[ApproachMedium]

Buy new harness pins from GM. Crimp your bigger better wire in to new pins, remove old speaker wire pins from wire harness, replace with new wire with pins installed. Done. We did this on my friends Jetta and now his Audi because the factory wire was just not good enough when your running 150W RMS to each door.

[Walt]

For the most part, an inch or two worth of factory small wire is not going to make or break a speaker install, or restrict the power flow to your speakers.

Here's my question: Are you using your stock deck? If so, just cut the speaker wires coming from the harness a few inches away, and use crimp connectors, sometimes called "butt splices" to connect your new wires to the harness. If you're using an aftermarket head unit, do the same thing, except directly to the new head unit's harness.

[killian96ss]

If the speaker wires coming out of the factory head unit or aftermarket head unit are small, which they always are because of the low RMS ratings, it doesn't make any sense to run larger wires directly to the new speakers. You will gain nothing by doing this. The factory speaker wiring will work just as good. Now, if you are powering the speakers from a separate amp, then yes using larger speaker wires connected to the amp will make a big difference in sound quality. If you are running new wires because the factory wires became damaged, I would suggest running a similar sized wire as the factory wire or 1 gauge larger. Posi-Locks are also great wiring connectors!

Steve

[urimashe]

thanks for all your input, I am currently using an aftermarket radio, but in case the time comes that I need to sell the truck or if it ever needs to be repo'ed I wanted to know how to get the new speakers hooked back in to the factory harness for when I reinstall the factory radio before they take it if that ever arises.