Ford Windstar Premium Audio Solution - FYI

Hi all,

Just wanted to pay back help received, and give some advice on the installation of aftermarket stereo in a 95 or similar year Ford Windstar with premium audio.

The original radio/cd unit has four connections: flat 8-pin plug (feeds unit with power and control), rectangular 8-pin block (speaker connection to remote amp), rectangular 6-pin block (no idea, but guessing it feeds the rear audio controls), a 2-pin block (again, no idea what it does).

The factory amp is installed behind the glove box.  Open the door, and spring the rubber buffer stops inwards to allow the door to swing down out of the way.  The amplifier is now visible.  The 8-pin speaker block from the radio/cd connects to the amp, and another oblong connector exits the amp and feeds the 4 speakers. 

I was using a Metra install kit (I'm sure you can use others but since the Metra tech support were superb and helped answer the crucial questions, I'll use thir part numbers.  Using the 70-1704 (the standard Ford 8-pin flat connector), hook up the power and ground connections. 

The amplifier bypass cable (70-5513) can be used if your amp has the matching input and output connectors as provided by Metra.  Mine didn't: the input was a smaller 8-pin rectangular unit (matching the unit from the radio/cd unit).  The output did match the Matra cable.

OK, the trick!  Cut off the input end of the Bypass Cable (that's the end that doesn't match).  Hook up the new radio speaker wires directly to the Bypass cable.  You might be lucky and not have to extend the 8 speaker wires.  I was fortunate and could join the speaker connections from the new radio to the Bypass cable.  This action gives you a direct connection from the new stereo to the installed 4 speakers. 

The other cable provided in the Premium Audio harness kit (79-5512), an 8-pin rectangular unit, is not needed since you have taken the speaker feeds from the new unit directly to the 'old' output from the amp.

You do loose the rear audio control with the above install, but if that's a problem, get a stereo unit with a remote!

My install worked flawlessly, hope your's does too!

Tony Gordon

You could be right, but the 70-5511 is the standard Ford power/control cable: this works fine with both standard and premium audio setups: this cable does not need hacking.  The cable that needs hacking is the 70-5513, amplifier bypass, which has to be cut to connect with the premium amp. output to the 4-speaker setup in the 95 Windstar.  Now I'm sure that Metra does make a cable that allows the premium amp bypass to be conneted via the  8-pin double row black rectangular block with the 8-pin flat speaker output, but at 3:00pm on a cold Sunday in Michigan, we were pleased to be able to hack and succeed!

i'm not being critical, just trying to understand why you had to cut the cable... the 5510 is the same plug as the 5511 except that it comes with 4 RCS'a instead of just speaker line level inbput... they work great, i've used dozens.... also, the 5511 works fine on this vehicle and you just hook it up to the new HU's speaker leads.....

did the HU you put in NOT have 4 channel RCS pre-out? if it did shouldnt the 5510 have just plugged right in?

ahhh...ding (the little lightbulb went on)... you were not doing an amp integration... you wanted (for some reason) to bypass the factory amp.... gotcha.....  i use these plugs all the time for factory amp integration and they work slick as poop, that's why i couldnt understand why you would have to do any hacking and slashing...sorry Tony....see it pays to re-read things at 7:00 am on a cold Tuesday in Saskatchewan!!  lol