88 Town Car JBL Amplifier

[TecNickal]

Is it worth grabbing the JBL amplifier out of 88 Town Car? Known working. Does it work in an 89 Grand Marq with Premium Sound? I got all the speakers from it already

[gadget73]

If the 89 has the square silver amp, it'll swap. Same plugs, etc. It won't sub for a football amp. They are more powerful. Grab the rear speakers too, they're better.

[HiFiMerc]

Everytime I find a pair of those, they're wasted. Midrange cones are usually half dust, and the woofer cones are sunken in. They could probably put most aftermarket offerings to shame if they were in working order.

[DerekTheGreat]

What HiFiMerc & gadget said. I hoard that stuff like it was gold. The rear speakers are indeed pretty hard to beat when working properly. I think the '89s got the surrounds that don't crumble into dust over time but even if they are already dust, just take the four screws off the top plate and unplug the wires going into the midrange driver and you'll be all set. There will be a hump in the frequency response but if your front speakers are working ok you'll never notice unless you're in the back seat

[gadget73]

The mids do usually fail. Both sets I have don't have working mids. They're in the back tho, so I can't really tell. One I actually removed with a knife because it rattled. Sounds far better without the rattle. Haven't had trouble with the woofer surrounds. All the ones I've run into were the cloth that doesn't go all funny.

[TecNickal]

I have a football amp in my 89. My speakers suck in 89 in the doors. Driver one is dead and passenger is crackling and all. Cargo speakers are dead.
I just need to see wiring diagrams to understand how it works. No molex connectors in these cars so much easier to snake wires into doors.
The 88 Town I grabbed the complete gray cable ,all speakers (dash and doors), rear deck speakers, radio and massive amp.

[HiFiMerc]

I think they were all the accordian style treated cloth. Just the cones were sunken in.

[gadget73]

hm, haven't run into that. Maybe someone blasted them too much. I have melted JBL voice coils before. The other thing with those amps is that when they die, they can put about 40 volts DC across the voice coil at a pretty decent amount of current. That would be worth checking before connecting anything. If the voltmeter reads a bunch of DC voltage on the speaker terminals, don't hook it up to the speakers. They are fixable, and its not really even that hard. The chips in the amp die. Replace with a pair of STK2250's and you're golden. Just don't buy them from China.

[DerekTheGreat]

If you've got the football I'm pretty sure you're going to need to rewire all of it if you want the factory JBL set-up. I believe the football faggotry was common ground. Those amps are known to die, and that might actually be the problem and not the speaker.

[TecNickal]

Would that be why the woofer in the door sounds like crap on pass door and driver door dead. Rear speakers are unplugged and front dash speakers are plugged in and sound/work dine

[gadget73]

Outputs to the speakers from the football are not common ground, so the wires running to the front can be re-purposed to the JBL. Rear speakers may be able to re-purpose as well, if not its like 3 feet of wire in the trunk. I did that with my car, using aftermarket amps. On my car the rear speakers ran straight off the radio, the fronts ran through the football amp.


The dash speakers run parallel to the door speakers, so if the dash speakers are fine, that channel on the amp is also fine unless your dash speakers are fried and you can't hear that they sound like crap. More likely the door speakers are shot.

[DerekTheGreat]

Hmm. Thought I read somewhere that the football only powered the door speakers and that you were able to switch it on and off. Maybe that was with the earlier stuff. Saw a Mk. VI that had a switch for premium sound to the lower left of the stereo. If the speakers are shot then I've got tons of premium ones you could have. Good JBL woofers, now those are rare, especially the dash ones. With no enclosure in the door and free roaming moisture they get mighty corroded around these parts.

[TecNickal]

The pre 86 models I've seen a knob for "Pull for Amp" or something like that - just like on the Mark VI you saw.

I have some good dash and door JBL speakers. And rears. I can't use rears in wagon - they're too big, lol.

I will use some enclosures on the door woofers to keep moisture off.

Also the 88 and 89 models used different speaker connectors?

[DerekTheGreat]

Ahh. I see said the blind man to the deaf dog..

You have JBL dash & door speakers? Are they for sale??

Good idea. I tried but since I ran 6.5's instead of 5.25's the foam enclosure thingies just wouldn't fit...

Yes. 88 and lower got the one style where as 89 and up got another. Proof positive is Ashley's 89 TC vs my '88. Stereo and amp connectors are the same, as in a JBL amp from a 89 TC will drop in an '88 TC. But, the speakers have different connectors.

[sly]

Some of the footballs were 4-channel like the one originally in the Mark VI I sold to sxcpotatoes. Those amps are so blah that a cheapo (re: less than $100) single din head unit sounds better.