I tried searching the forums for a solution, but did not find anything relevant to my issue.


I recently bought a 1994 Volvo 940 sedan. The speakers in the front doors and the rear deck are factory original and completely shot. After some effort, I was able to figure out how to remove the rear seat and deck cover to expose the speakers so I could replace them. The problem I have is that the new speakers only have 2 connection points and the factory speakers have 4 with wires that come to a connector of some kind that plugs into the cars wiring harness. I have not been able to location any information that would help me connect the aftermarket speakers to the factory wiring harness.


Any assistance with this issue would be appreciated.


Thanks!

 

are you still using the original 1994 cassette(?) deck ? can you post a couple pictures of these original rear deck speakers? they probably have seperate wiring for bass and tweeter, and there's likely some sort of amplifier in the trunk. I've only wired a wagon for sound, it ddin't have rear deck speakers, just rear door, and they were 2 wire. my wagon had dash speakers but no front door speakers, but there was wiring to the front doors, so I put component speakers in front, with 6.5" woofers in the front doors, and the seperate tweeters mounted in the dash positions (I took the original dash speakers, removed the voice coil, cone, and magnet, and epoxyed the tweeter to the frame, then reinstalled, they looked stock). the component speakers had seperate crossovers, which I mounted on the bracket under the drivers dash where the clutch pedal might have been mounted. I used an aftermarket Pioneer CD deck, with 50W x 4 power (really about 22W RMS x 4).

these adapters made putting 6.5" speakers in the front doors easy.
PVC Speaker Adapters - CNC Machined - In Stock or Custom Made

I put 5.25" coax speakers in the rear doors of that wagon... I never did get around to adding a subwoofer as the 6.5" component mains had enough bass.

 

hmmm. the 94 940 greenbooks show a sedan as having 8 speakers, but each speaker only has 2 wires. there's two configurations, one has a separate amplifier, the other runs everything from a deck with an integrated amplifier..

dash speakers are wired straight to the deck.
front door speakers go either to the amp or to the deck
the rear deck speakers are wired parallel to the rear door speakers, these go to the amp or deck. on some wagons, there are rear tweeters in the D pillars.

 

oh, on the factory speakers, the solid color wire is negative, the striped wire is positive.

 

I have attached a photo of one of the speakers. There are 2 wires coming off the tweeter and 2 wires coming off the bass. They come together in a connector that attaches to the wiring harness. I do not know if the amp is in the trunk. I looked in the trunk and didn't see anything, but it could be behind a panel, I suppose. I haven't had time to investigate fully. The question I have is how do I wire the 2 wires that come with the aftermarket speakers into this 4 wire connector? Also, will the aftermarket speaker mount on the deck easily given that the factory speakers have some sort of tab that slips into mounting points and only 2 screws to attach them? Thanks.

 

that wire with duct tape and that connector doesn't look factory. I'd try and trace where that connector/harness wire goes, there just might be an old crossover somewhere ?

the amp on my 1992 940 wagon, and my wife's 1993 960, was under the driver side dashboard, above where the clutch pedal isn't

 

The speaker is original, the sticker on the back has the words Volvo and Made In Sweden along with a part number that is too faded to read. The wires are soldered to the speakers and appear to be original, as well. The tape is only holding the connectors in place in the small recess they are resting in. I was never interested in where the amp was located, I am trying to figure out how to wire a 2 wire speaker into this 4 wire set up and have the new speakers work.


Thanks.

 

if there's a crossover you'll need to find it and bypass it. a crossover takes in 2 wires from an amplifier and has 2 pairs out, one for the tweeter and another for the woofer. if those 4 wires go all the way back to the factory amplifier (probably under the dashboard as I said), then the crossover is probably IN that amplifier, and that will be a problem.

you could TRY just hooking your speaker up to the pair that goes to the main/woofer part of the original speaker. this would work OK if the factory crossover is simply a high pass filter for the tweeters, but it would NOT work if its a sophisticated multi-pole filter (you would not get much treble out of your new speaker, so it would sound muffled or muddy).

If it was MY car, I'd be replacing the stereo with a modern aftermarket stereo, gaining USB, aux input, and bluetooth support, and I'd be removing and bypassing that original amplifier, as said modern decks tend to have 20-25 watts RMS x 4 channels, which is plenty.

 

Thank you for your input with the speakers.


I have only had the car 2 weeks and the weather has not been conducive to doing much work outside, and I do not have a garage. I am thinking of connecting the 2 wires from the aftermarket speaker to the 4 wires from the original setup to see if that will send full sound to the speakers. I will also try connecting to the 2 wires from the main woofer, if the 4 wire solution does not work well. Eventually, I will get around to replacing the factory radio, but right now, its not in the cards.

 

Now that I have taken a close look at the connectors to the rear speakers, the 4 wires that come off the tweeter and woofer come together at the connector where they are combined and come out of the connector only on 2 blades that hook up to the harness. Based on this, I think connecting the 2 wires from the new speaker to the 4 wires of the connector should work out fine. I will let you know how it goes.

 

be sure to get your speaker polarity consistent. as I said, all my wiring diagrams for 940's show the 'solid' wire is -, and the striped wire is + ... its important that the speakers all be in the same phase, or they cancel each other and sound hollow.

 

My first thought was correct. I connected the 2 gray wires with the black stripes together with an electrical connector and also the 2 gray wires w/o stripes together in another connector. I then connected the black speaker wire with a red stripe to the gray w/black stripe connector and the plain black speaker wire to the gray wire w/o stripe connector and the speakers work just fine. The radio still sucks, though...


Thanks for the suggestions, it got me thinking more about how to go about it.

 

Now on to the front door speakers. Looks like more work, to me. Drilling rivets and who knows what else.

 

that speaker adapter I posted above works great on the 940 doors with the square grills.

note the adapters are BEHIND the door panels, so you can't see them.

rear door on my 92....


front door...

and behind the grill...


I don't have any pictures of my tweeter install. I took the factory dashboard speakers out, carefully removed the grill from the speaker (bend the tabs out, lift off), then gutted the speaker and magnet, leaving just the frame, and epoxied the tweeters to the frame, replaced the grill. these speakers use external crossovers which I mounted behind/under the driver side dash near where the factory amplifier used to be. they sounded fantastic. JL Audio C2-650 component, C2-650 - Car Audio - C2 - Component Systems - JL Audio

could play loud enough to rattle the windows and still sound clean. I used RTV (silicone aquarium sealant) when I installed them to de-rattle the door panels and seal the speakers to the adapters behind them.

 

[yes, that front door 6.5" woofer, I had to trim a bit of the speaker frame on top so teh factory grills would fit over them, and I tore the top layer of the cardboard gasket ring. after I took the picture, I put a bit of white glue on that carboard to seal it down)