Possibly THE worst amplifier/battery wiring I've seen in a car!

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This is running TWO sundown 2500's, with the "ability" to switch between 12, or 16volts.

Behind the right seat, you have a 12volt battery, connected to a (maybe) 200amp switch, via 4ga cable.
The output from that switch is then connected to the fuse block via a 0ga cable, the amps are then connected to the fuses, 0ga to each amp.

The ground to the amps appears to be 4ga, that runs to the back of the car somewhere, rather than to the batteries?

Behind the left seat, two 8volt batteries in series, once again, connected to a 200amp switch, with a single 0ga cable running to the 750amps worth of fuses.
Then there's the 8ga cable to the anderson plug, unfused, running through sheet metal, with no grommet?

Also, we have a copper bus bar, about 1cm from shorting out to the metal frame, and none of the batteries are secured...

Plus, there's two 0ga cables, running from the two 8v batteries, back UNDER the copper bar, so if the insulation wears through, the batteries will be directly shorted out...

Of course, the fuses are bad too.... bits hacked off the ends because the terminals didn't fit, and terminals sitting ontop of the fuses so they aren't flat on the "bus bars"

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I'm posting this basically to say, PLEASE DON'T DO THIS IN YOUR OWN CAR!
 
I don't know how the law works in your area but if you do ANYTHING to that system and the problems with the installation cause a fire, you may be setting yourself up for a lawsuit. He could claim that you were supposed to fix problems that you found.

I'd suggest slitting a piece of fuel line (or some similar heavy hose) and placing it on the angle stock near that bussbar.

What are the fuses for in this installation?

Are there fuses on the batteries?

The fuses can't possibly protect the amps. If one amp fails (shorted outputs), it essentially has to blow 750 amps worth of fuses. He needs to break those to two circuits with one fuse per amp.
 
I'd suggest slitting a piece of fuel line
Yup. Do that in the right spot, it'll drip onto the manifold and poof! - no more problem wiring.
It looks pretty good compared to some my efforts from when I was teenager.
Ya no bullpitooey, some of my early adventures are, um... you know what?, I am not gonna even say. :D
 
Impressive.

I like his terminals on the custom made fuse block.... Some copper pipe, with the end hammered flat!

"flat"?

I don't know how much contact the terminals are making with the copper bar, I doubt they're very flat at all, combined with the fact they're resting on the fuses :joker: :shhh:

Ya no bullpitooey, some of my early adventures are, um... you know what?, I am not gonna even say. :D

but when you're a teenager, you're generally using pretty crappy gear to begin with, and lets be honest, it would be no great loss if it caught on fire...

I'm really not sure what he expects 750amps worth of fuses to do with a piece of 4ga (120amp?) cable in the circuit, not to mention the potential massive resistance created by his "crimp terminals"

Chances are the fuses will be the last thing to fail!
 
Hmmmm... when I was a teenager, I suppose I was either too poor, too scared, and too careful. So everything had to work and last longer than or as long as the car itself.

I recall one summer day at 17 years old having to pick up my father from the dental surgeon early in the day and he went to sleep because it was massive. My day off, so I took out his car from the garage and had put mine in. It was nightfall before my father woke back up and looked in the garage and saw me toiling away with drill, string, files, tape, harnesses, fish tape, wires, connectors, and about everything else I could find that was appropriate to hook up an old JVC amp to my jeep (my second car ever). Face it, anything jeep like was not Fort Knox, so you had to hide it well and bolt it down even better. Everything I did to that used jeep kept it looking stock except for the stainless exhaust system (cost the same at the time and wasn't going to rust out).

The wiring was from underneath and mount the small amp behind the dash (when there was room to do that), make the connections to the fuse box (when there were spare spaces in there too), run a wire from the fusebox to the amp, hooking part of it up for power on/off to the power antenna hook up (turn off the radio or car and amp goes off too) at the back of the deck, connect source to amp and test/test/test, and run speaker wire to the back sides through the frame and not under the carpet.

My father looked at me, the seats, the carpeting (to access the holes in the floor from the frame wiring), interior panels, inspected the wiring job with flashlight, and said, "Not bad. Looks safe. Here's the hard part -- I hope you can get that all together again without my help because my face hurts and I am going back to bed after dinner. Let's eat."

He was right, it was more of pain to get the clips back in with the panels and the carpet in straight and smooth. I finished at something like 1:30 AM, but I had tunes and it was incognito.


I'm getting old so I can say this, "What is wrong with some kids now a days?"

Why not just invest the time and the effort? It makes it better and you won't have to worry about becoming a flaming pile of fireworks. Costs about the same and who cares if you miss the latest episode of some un-Reality show on TV?
 
Well, good on you then. If you approach most things in life that way, then others will notice (like friends, parents, relatives, and bosses) and they will tend to trust in your work and give you that more credit for work done.

With that work behind me and word got out -- it was not the most boomy system, but it sounded very good for the size 30+30 W plus whatever was put out on the deck to the fronts.

I ended up consulting and installing (no you do not need the biggest amp and speakers out there, this plain jane Clarion faceplate model will do because your car is crap and sound from the over the top well marketed Alpine sound will just leak out, save your money, and save your ears) five and a half systems of amps and speakers in acquaintance's cars to make some quick cash. This was the late 80's when people thought a single extended note of, "BOOOOOOOooooooooooommmm!" meant awesome bass. It didn't -- that was just noise. None of these were show cars (mostly old stock stereo in family cars), but daily drivers to high school and work. None of my builds could compete with the show cars, but doing the math and seeing what could happen, these guys didn't want those either.

It saved them a crap load of money for a day without a car and I got me some money for gas and insurance. One guy's parent's drove to my house and asked how much I charged their son (they didn't believe it) and wanted me to change the deck in their car (no amp). I recommended deck and speakers and it was money. I turned down the nicer newer cars and people who wanted something I couldn't do (two or more amps, multitude of speakers, separate tweeters, boom tubes, box construction, etc.).

If you do good, work maybe try it out on the side if you have the time. There are fewer and fewer car stereo installers and it is a good way of making a quick buck. My service was about 50 to 60% of the professional installers quote with drop in only (for deck and speakers), including connectors, grommets, tape, but not including hardware (you buy your own amp, deck, speakers, and wire because I couldn't get wholesale cost anyway), and charge time for harder to reach installations of the amp.

I just sort of got back into it this winter too... my friend's wife's Isuzu Trooper needed a new deck, needed a face plate, mounting, and wiring for the truck. We ended up making a custom cut carbon fibre faceplate (he did the initial lamination with the sheets and fibreglass resin) and it works nice.
 
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The "installer" in the first pics is 41.

This would be his third or fourth major "upgrade" to the stereo in the past few years, it does keep getting bigger! but the install never gets any better.

I stand corrected then, the younger generation is not to blame (and I apologize -- though at 41 he is still younger than I am...), but I still stand on my statement of,

"Why not just invest the time and the effort? It makes it better and you won't have to worry about becoming a flaming pile of fireworks. Costs about the same and who cares if you miss the latest episode of some un-Reality show on TV?"

But then maybe some people are setting themselves up for learning a lesson. Who knows?
 
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