Help with Sound Gremlins

I grounded my head unit to the crossbar. Just drilled and used a sheet metal screw. It could be the RCA outputs on your headunit. I had that problem with a headunit before. Also make sure there is nothing touching the rcas behind the headunit

 

I just put an ohm meter on the grounds. The ground at the amp is reading 3.4Ω. The ground in the door panel is 4.2Ω. The ground on the crossbar behind the HU is ~4Ω. So my amp ground is pretty solid. I can't find any part of the bodywork behind the rear pillars that is better than the 3.4Ω I have at the amp. Under the truck I had to go to the xfer case to get a 0Ω reading. My meter is not good beyond tenths of an ohm anyways. Short of running a heavy gauge ground wire all the way up to the battery, I don't think I am going to find a better ground.

 

All u need to get is a ground loop isolator. 15 bucks at Wal-Mart or radioshack. Also goes by the name noise supressor. It'll take all your unwanted sounds out.

 

and ruin the sound. this isn't a nickle and dime setup

 

haha well just tryin to help

 

You want to have the shortest ground possible. I grounded my amp to one of the factory threaded holes on the cross beams that run on the back wall in my double cab. I sanded all of the paint down to the bare metal underneath the connector. My ground wire is only about 14 inches long. did you run new wires to your speakers? maybe one of those wires is grounding out.

 

sorry. I wasn't trying to come across as a dick. I am just as frustrated as I get. I feel that GLIs are bandaids and treat the symptom not the problem.

My grounds are fairly short... though longer than 14". The speaker wires are factory at this point. I never saw a reason to replace them with the power I am running. I am still in the process of reconnecting everything behind the HU tonight. Only a few dozen more connection to strip, solder, and heat-shrinkwrap... time to eat 1st!

Thanks

 

There shouldn't be an issue with stock speaker wires. At least, there is little reason to replace them on the initial install other than piece of mind.

Not sure this is an option for you, but if you have spare components (amp and HU) then you might try a simple swap to see if either on of those is truly the source of the noise. Though I would still suspect a FUBAR RCA.

 

I have no spares available unfortunately. I wouldn't want to wire in a new HU anyways... so many connections! I just finished re-soldering all of the connections behind the HU a few minutes ago.

I got a ship notification already from knukonceptz. They are fast. Hopefully I will drop in the new RCAs and wipe my wands clean of this mess.

I still am surprised at the amount of EMI coming from the seat belt reals. I know the SRS is tied in with the inertial reals, but I would not expect that much interference. ...I should have tried pulling the fuses to the safety systems before i went through all of this to confirm if that was/is a primary source of noise.

 

You might also want to wrap the RCA's in tin foil near the area where the seat belt tensioned is since you said it was giving you problems. Might help shield it a bit if that's really what is causing the noise.