Broken stock speaker cables 2005 Chrysler 300. Can’t route new cables?

[Matthew]

Drivers side of car, the speaker wires are broken somewhere. Can’t see where. I’m 20 hours of labor into an audio overhaul. I’ve check the wires and directly wired the speaker to radio, its for sure the cables. Two issues, I can’t get off the door rubber boot, I can only access the clips on the side cloest to interior of car, and even if I did, I can’t seem to be able to route wires through (I tried with a coathanger type tool) because on the interior there is a junk of something in the way, I can’t see or access anything.

Pictures below is the rubber boot between the door (only passageway for cables)

Pictured below is under the steering wheel, and towards the left all that is the stuff where the rubber boot leaders into (blocking me from feeding cable from interior of car, through boot, and into door.

Anyone able to tell me how to route new cables or at least tell me whats in the way so I can painstakingly remove it to take a better look? Im doing this to help out a friend who couldn’t normally take this to a professional. I’ve done audio in my car and tons of other repairs, we are both fresh out of high school and can’t afford to spends hundreds of dollars on a skilled mechanic to deal with this.

Topic

[Michael Petsch]

If it were me I would use a DVOM and check for continuity between the end of the wire where the speaker is and each wire at the factory harness behind the head unit. Maybe the color is different at the harness than at the speaker connection. That way you can be 100% sure it is a broken wire. If you confirm it is a broken wire, you can then start poking the probes through the wire at various points until you can find between what points the broken connection is and repair it. Seems easier than running a new wire.

[Mike]

Perhaps you can hook and tape the new speaker wires to the ends of the factory ones, and then withdraw the old wires while feeding the new ones at the same time.

[Matthew]

[quote=”m1keyp93″ post=195553]If it were me I would use a DVOM and check for continuity between the end of the wire where the speaker is and each wire at the factory harness behind the head unit. Maybe the color is different at the harness than at the speaker connection. That way you can be 100% sure it is a broken wire. If you confirm it is a broken wire, you can then start poking the probes through the wire at various points until you can find between what points the broken connection is and repair it. Seems easier than running a new wire.[/quote]

The wires are for sure broken. I wired the speaker directly to the radio and it works fine, but when wired to the stock harness with great soldered joints, it does not work. the amount of cable I have access to is inches, and the break is further down than that unfortunately.

[Matthew]

[quote=”Evil-i” post=195554]Perhaps you can hook and tape the new speaker wires to the ends of the factory ones, and then withdraw the old wires while feeding the new ones at the same time.[/quote]

Yeah I tried hooking some wire to a stiff cable. As soon as the wire reaches the point where the rubber boot meets the door, It will not feed any further, and as shown in the pictures, there is a huge mess of stuff right where the boot goes into the door so I cannot see or access ANY of the wires there and the wires that I can see are in one very thick bundled harness cable and a good 12 inches of cable where I believe the break is is completely inaccessible and out of sight due to whatever part is mounted there.

[Michael Petsch]

Perhaps you can splice a wire from the harness to right before it enters the rubber boot?

[Matthew]

[quote=”m1keyp93″ post=195607]Perhaps you can splice a wire from the harness to right before it enters the rubber boot?[/quote]

After reading your replies I too thought about this. If all else fails I may try this but I find it unlikely to be a solution because I would assume the cable would break where the joint is, not where the cable sits perfectly still. In order to splice right before it enters the boot area I would have to really cut up the extremely neatly laid stock harness which is preferred to not be done. Not like the car is in warranty though, so maybe I might go for it in a few days or something.

Thanks for the input and effort to help me.

[Michael Petsch]

You should heed my previous advice, and check out the continuity of the wire at various points with a dvom. You can then confirm where the break-in the wire is, and figure out what approach is best to splice the broken connection. Good luck.

[Author]

Replies