Help 1997 Grand Marquis Rear Speakers Wiring Identification

FTLOSM

I have a 1997 Grand Marquis and just bought a set of Polk DB690 - 6x9's to replace the stock speakers, I took the rear seat out and have the rear stock speakers out BUT the speaker wires are color coded and the speaker itself (the stock one) has no markings of pos or neg on the speaker or the harness.

I am ready to hook up the new polks here and put the car back together BUT I don't know which wires are positive or negative on the leads coming in thru the back dash since the speakers and harness units aren't marked in anyway?

In the back dash area I have these wires (need to id which are pos or neg)
to complete my installation...

The drivers side has 2 wires one grey w/bluestripe one light orange w/ yellow stripe

The passenger side has 2 wires one grey w/ purple stripe and one orange w/ a stripe (faded cant tell color).

SO I am half way there , car torn apart, wires exposed ready to hook things up, but have no idea what ford/mercury has done here color coding wise, I always thought a neg wire would have a stripe and be easy to spot, yet both of these are striped on both sides, and since I can't trace it from the stock speaker or harness (since neither of them are marked in anyway pos or neg) I am sorta stuck.

I hate to put the thing back together but I do have a family to carry around in it so I am hoping for a fast reply so I can get this working back together and back on the road for tomorrrow if possible.

Bill

FTLOSM

Here are some pics, of the speaker no markings I can tell in anyway to determine pos or neg



as for the harness, I plan to destroy the orig stock speakers (they suck anyways) and just wire them directly to my new polks, but since I don't know which side of the harness is pos or neg I am again stuck here..

Here are a few pics of the harnesses if that helps at all?

Passenger side rear grey w/ purple stripe and one orange w/ a stripe


Drivers side rear one grey w/bluestripe one light orange w/ yellow stripe


I hope someone out there has some sorta cross reference book or knows ford wiring or that these pics in someway help id which are pos and neg.

Generally in the past I have seen red dots or plus minus marked on the stock speaker itself (to indicate pos/neg) or the wires themselves one had stripes so it was easier to assume it was the neg, but in this case the color of the wires and their stripes dont help, examining the speaker and harness there are no markings, so at this point I am just very stuck with a car half torn apart to figure out which is pos or neg...

Bill

Joelsbass

easiest way to find out is to pick up the Haynes manual from your local auto parts store. It'll have that listed along with just about everything else in your car. outside of that you can google the wiring diagram for your car or try reposting in the car audio section, while I don't know the diagram for that car offhand one of the other guys there might.

FTLOSM

I do have a Haynes Manual here is the scan of the page for the 1993 and up radios.

The problem is (I must not know how to read it) but I still can't see or tell which is positive or negative to the speakers with this diagram.



How do you read electrical diagrams like this, I get the o/r is orange red etc but how do you tell which is pos or neg ? btw mine has no cell telephone as an option shown in this diagram.

My right has orange red wire and brown pink wire (but not sure which is pos or neg)
My left has grey blue and tan yellow wire (like the diagram) but still not sure which is pos or neg.


Also my colors are slightly different than the diagram ford gives for 93 and up, one wire in particular they call white and pink, on that speaker (right rear) they say one wire is white pink, and one orange red, I do have a orange red on my right speaker but the other wire is clearly brown/pink, either way tho still cant figure out which is pos or neg anyone know from the diagram pic (and how do you tell).

Bill

Eric W

If you take the stock speaker, connect a 9 volt battery to the terminals and observe which way the speaker moves, if it moves forwards then whichever terminal the positive of the battery was on is your positive terminal. From there you should be able to tell which of the OEM plugs is positive.

Another way is to simply wire them consistently (the OEM terminal is not symmetrical, wire all the speakers the same way). Such as, wire to the left of the tab is wired to positive. Then it really doesn't matter if "all" the speakers are wired out of phase. If you stick your head between the two speakers and listen it should be fairly obvious if a left/right pair are out of phase. Then do this again to compare between front/back.

FTLOSM

Right or wrong I went out started swapping wires around turned up music and this is what sounded the best so I left it as that.



I didn't even mess with the fronts so this was only the rears



Grey/light blue -

tan/yellow +



orange/red -

brown/pink +



and doing the fade and balance trial and error over and over that is what sounded even solid and in phase with each other, so regardless of the wirelayouts (none of which exactly shows same colors same year and sorta conflict each other) this was trial and error the best sound I could get out of them.



Now they have full rich sound with bass and mix well with the fronts so I am 99% sure they are correct just from swap this listen swap that listen etc etc.