2001 Dodge Caravan Head Replacement

I would like to replace the Head unit in a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan.  This has an infinity gold system.  Each speaker appears to have an amp on it except two small speakers in the back.  There are a total of eight speakers in the van.  Does anyone know what powers the amps - voltage, amps, ohm rating, etc. -.  I have tried buying a "wiring harness" that is supposed to allow hookup of any head unit.  This wiring harness included a black box for input and output to the old wiring harness.  I still get no sound, period, out of the speakers.  My concern is that the head unit does not put out enough voltage to power the amps.  Each speaker has six (6) pins on the amps.  2 wires come out of the black box amps into the speaker.  The other 4 are a mystery.  According to the wiring, one is positive and one is negative, and they are in line through the speaker to the next speaker in the set.  This eventually loops back to the head unit and the ground, according to the diagram.  I just want to replace the head unit without having to rewire the whole damn van.

Thanks :)

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lorenmcguire

With my past experience with these vans, you are not trying to power the amplifier's with the internal amp of the aftermarket deck. What you are doing is send a signal to the speaker and what's probably happening is your not turning on the OEM amplifier with the aftermarlet deck. You need to power the amplifier's first before you get any power from them.

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Jeff
Velocity Custom Home Theater
Mobile Audio/Video Specialist
Morden, Manitoba CANADA

just like Velocity said, turn on the factory amps. hook up the blue wire (or blue/white if you have that also) to the blue wire on the after market black plug

I have heard this before.  I did hook up the blue wire, and then tried the blue and white wire, to the blue wire on the harness.  This is one of the problems I think with the head unit I have .  I checked the voltage ouput from the head unit, and the blue wire is putting out less than 1 volt. (somewhere around .23 to .29 volts).  Either blue or blue and white wire.  The blue wire from the head unit says it outputs .1 amps (thats point one) and the blue and white wire outputs .3 (point three) amps.  There is no statement anywhere in the docs on the stereo for what the voltage output should be.  I was under the impression each speaker had its own amp, which made me think that .1 or .3 amps going to 8 speakers in sync with virtually no voltage wasn't going to turn much of anything on.  I even tried hooking the red wire to the blue wire for sec to see if I got anything.  Still nothing.  I know the speakers work because I direct wired from the new head unit to the speaker input and bypassed the amp.  This worked with no problems.  I am open to suggestions. 

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lorenmcguire

Depending on the unit that you have, the BLUE wire will be the power antenna lead and the BLUE/WHITE will be the remote turn on lead. These are two very different wires in characteristics so make sure that you are using the wire designated for the remote turn on lead and if the power antenna wire is not going to be used, tape it up. The power antenna lead ONLY works when the radio is chosen on the head unit, while the remote turn on lead has power whenever the headunit power's up. Did you purchase a wiring harness for this installation ?

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Jeff
Velocity Custom Home Theater
Mobile Audio/Video Specialist
Morden, Manitoba CANADA