How to Bypass the Amp in a 2004 Impala
by mfrontuto in Workshop > Cars
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How to Bypass the Amp in a 2004 Impala
If you are like me and hate being told that something is impossible to do and you own a 2004 Chevy Impala nad your stock Radio keeps shutting itself off at random when you are driving and turns on after you shut your car off then this instructable is for you .
This instructable is for people who own a 04 impala with a BOSE FACTORY AMP , since Chevy used several different vendors for the amps im not sure if the wiring will be the same.
This instructable is for people who own a 04 impala with a BOSE FACTORY AMP , since Chevy used several different vendors for the amps im not sure if the wiring will be the same.
THINGS YOU WILL NEED
16 Wire nuts (more if you plan on trying to get the factory tweeters to work)
Wire cutters/strippers
Eletrical tape
The ability to crawl into your trunk and stay there for a few mins
16 Wire nuts (more if you plan on trying to get the factory tweeters to work)
Wire cutters/strippers
Eletrical tape
The ability to crawl into your trunk and stay there for a few mins
The first thing you need to do is open the trunk of your car then DISCONNECT the battery from your car (if you don't and get zapped do not blame me)
Next unplug both harnesses that are conected to your cars AMP (They will have a tab on the top of them that you need to press down on to get them out)
Next unplug both harnesses that are conected to your cars AMP (They will have a tab on the top of them that you need to press down on to get them out)
Now here comes the fun part
You can choose to do this several (or any) way that you want. I just took the most direct way of accomplishing this task.
Here is my way.
crawl into your trunk, pull the back seats down if you need to have more room to work with and get your wire cutter/strippers and wire nuts ready
You can choose to do this several (or any) way that you want. I just took the most direct way of accomplishing this task.
Here is my way.
crawl into your trunk, pull the back seats down if you need to have more room to work with and get your wire cutter/strippers and wire nuts ready
I found a wiring diagram online so it will a little Easy to follow. IF you have a 2000-2002 the wire diagram is different , sorry.
you will be basically be bridging or connecting the wires from the first harness to the second harness to preform this bypass.
you will be basically be bridging or connecting the wires from the first harness to the second harness to preform this bypass.
Ths is the order of wires to splice together / bridge
2002-2005 Don't follow the same amp wiring as the 2000-2001
You need to follow this pinout:
A9 -> C
A10 -> D-(D=WHITE, not GRAY)
A11 -> E (E=Lt blue w Black)
A12 -> F (F=Lt Green w BLACK)
B9 -> K (TAN wire, closest to M)
B10 -> J (TAN wire, FURTHEST FROM M)
B11 -> H (H= Dark Green w WHITE)---> SKIP THIS ONE AND SAVE IT FOR LAST
B12 -> G (G= Dark Blue w White)
You can't connect the front tweeter at the amp unless you add a crossover (So I have been told, I did not try it, just getting my radio to work was enough for me)
So basically you go to the first harness and find A9, which is the LIGHT BLUE wire on this harness, cut the wire, strip it, and then do the same to the RED wire on the second harness. Then put the tow togehter in you wire nut and twist to join.
Repeat this process for all of the steps untill you get to B11
Note on the B11 WIre
This will be LIGHT GREEN, but the OTHER WIRE ON THE OTHER HARNESS might be several different colors. this cart says that it is supposed to be DARK GREEN WITH A WHITE STRIPE.....MINE WAS JUST DARK GREEN
If you get to this step and are wondering what wire to cut/splice/join, look at the wiring chart for that harness, there should only be a few uncut wires left on it, 4 mabye more. go by the chart and match the wire colors up, IF yours is not DARK GREEN WITH A WHITE STRIPE it should be the only other color that is not on the chart, and that is not cut.
2002-2005 Don't follow the same amp wiring as the 2000-2001
You need to follow this pinout:
A9 -> C
A10 -> D-(D=WHITE, not GRAY)
A11 -> E (E=Lt blue w Black)
A12 -> F (F=Lt Green w BLACK)
B9 -> K (TAN wire, closest to M)
B10 -> J (TAN wire, FURTHEST FROM M)
B11 -> H (H= Dark Green w WHITE)---> SKIP THIS ONE AND SAVE IT FOR LAST
B12 -> G (G= Dark Blue w White)
You can't connect the front tweeter at the amp unless you add a crossover (So I have been told, I did not try it, just getting my radio to work was enough for me)
So basically you go to the first harness and find A9, which is the LIGHT BLUE wire on this harness, cut the wire, strip it, and then do the same to the RED wire on the second harness. Then put the tow togehter in you wire nut and twist to join.
Repeat this process for all of the steps untill you get to B11
Note on the B11 WIre
This will be LIGHT GREEN, but the OTHER WIRE ON THE OTHER HARNESS might be several different colors. this cart says that it is supposed to be DARK GREEN WITH A WHITE STRIPE.....MINE WAS JUST DARK GREEN
If you get to this step and are wondering what wire to cut/splice/join, look at the wiring chart for that harness, there should only be a few uncut wires left on it, 4 mabye more. go by the chart and match the wire colors up, IF yours is not DARK GREEN WITH A WHITE STRIPE it should be the only other color that is not on the chart, and that is not cut.
once you are done (if you just did it the easy way like I did ) then both of your harnesses that plugged into your FACTORY AMP will look like this.
now pull out your electrical tape, wrap all of this mess back up, tuck it into a empty cavity in your trunk
Get out of your trunk, reconnect your battery, and you can now enjoy your factory radio and know that it will never shut off at random again.
A note on further upgrades to your cars sound system
Now that you have bypassed your cars amp, you do not need to go out and buy a $100 plus harness to do so if you want to add an aftermarket radio, just the $32 harness with all of the chime features at Walmart
The same will go for adding in an aftermarket amp, since you bypassed the factory one you can add an aftermarket one and use the battery power, grounds, and tweeter wires left over from these harnesses
You can also see if you splice in the tweeter wires to their corresponding wires on the harness (I.E LEFT SPEAKER + tweeter wire to LEFT + speaker wire. I did not try this because getting my radio to just WORK like it is supposed to without spending a couple of hundred bucks is worth it alone.
If anyone does the tweeter splice and or the aftermarket Amp with the rest of the wires please post it on here for all to benefit.
now pull out your electrical tape, wrap all of this mess back up, tuck it into a empty cavity in your trunk
Get out of your trunk, reconnect your battery, and you can now enjoy your factory radio and know that it will never shut off at random again.
A note on further upgrades to your cars sound system
Now that you have bypassed your cars amp, you do not need to go out and buy a $100 plus harness to do so if you want to add an aftermarket radio, just the $32 harness with all of the chime features at Walmart
The same will go for adding in an aftermarket amp, since you bypassed the factory one you can add an aftermarket one and use the battery power, grounds, and tweeter wires left over from these harnesses
You can also see if you splice in the tweeter wires to their corresponding wires on the harness (I.E LEFT SPEAKER + tweeter wire to LEFT + speaker wire. I did not try this because getting my radio to just WORK like it is supposed to without spending a couple of hundred bucks is worth it alone.
If anyone does the tweeter splice and or the aftermarket Amp with the rest of the wires please post it on here for all to benefit.
Ok, I must admit that getting my aftermarket radio to work was a great accomplishment, but I got tired of my stero sounding like crap realy quick. So I tried (and sucessfully completed) the method of intergrating the factory tweeters and reintergrating the factory amp in the system while using a aftermarket stero.
Now as I stated before you can go out and buy a $180+ bypass harness to do this for you, but then you will ot have the use of the amp and tweeters which will result in your music sounding like crap.
so here is what you will need to complete this instructable.
More Wirenuts (you can butsplice, solder, or join them however you like, I was in the trunk of my car doing this and did not want to spend any more time than I had to doing this)
Wire strippers/cutters
Several peices of wire (about 6 or less inches long, stripped on both ends)
Time
Paitence
A Scosche factory stero replacement interface (if you are putting in a aftermarket unit, this needs to be put in to keed the chime features in your car and to keep it from giving you a bunch of diagnostic error codes)
Now as I stated before you can go out and buy a $180+ bypass harness to do this for you, but then you will ot have the use of the amp and tweeters which will result in your music sounding like crap.
so here is what you will need to complete this instructable.
More Wirenuts (you can butsplice, solder, or join them however you like, I was in the trunk of my car doing this and did not want to spend any more time than I had to doing this)
Wire strippers/cutters
Several peices of wire (about 6 or less inches long, stripped on both ends)
Time
Paitence
A Scosche factory stero replacement interface (if you are putting in a aftermarket unit, this needs to be put in to keed the chime features in your car and to keep it from giving you a bunch of diagnostic error codes)
The first step is to DISCONNECT the car battery, second is to pull your dash out and remove your stock radio, next use your wirenuts to join the aftermarket radio harness to the Scosche factory stero replacement interface, I will not go over this in detail because all of the wires on both the aftermarket stero and Scosche factory stero replacement interface are labeled, and pre stripped, all you have to do is connect them together with your wirenuts, plug in the interface harness with the stock harness and put your new stero back in your car.
Now we have to go back to the wiring diagram that I posted in the earlier steps, go to the smaller harness (there should now only be four or five wires still attached to it) and cut the PURPLE WIRE, this is the wire for the RIGHT FRONT TWETTER NEGATIVE(-) .
Now go back to your joined wires and find the DARK GREEN wire joined to the LIGHT BLUE w BLACK STRIPE WIRE, this the RIGHT FRONT SPEAKER WIRE, you want to JOIN THESE WIRES TOGETHER ALONG WITH ANOTHER STRIP OF WIRE LONG ENOUGH TO REACH THE CUT DARK GREEN WIRE ON THE BIG HARNESS. (I used BLACK wire for all of my bridging of the wires back onto the harness so I would not get confused when connecting and reconnecting all of these wires together).
After joining the wires together join the new piece of wire to the wire FROM THE HARNESS, REMEMBER TO MATH THE COLORS!!! THE DARK GREEN WIRE IS NOW CONNTECTED TO SEVERAL WIRES AND BACK TO ITSELF. (We are doing this to reintegrate the AMP BACK into the system along with the factory tweeters, WITHOUT HAVING TO BUY A REALLY EXPENSIVE Harness.
You will do this for the rest if the wires on the small harness, so the next one will be YELLOW WIRE =( LEFT FRONT TWEETER SPEAKER OUTPUT NEGATIVE (-), connect this to the GRAY WIRE THAT IS JOINED TO THE WHITE WIRE, Don’t forget to add another piece of wire to bridge back to the GRAY WIRE on the BIG harness.
Next is the BLACK WIRE (LEFT FRONT TWEETER SPEAKER OUTPUT POSITIVE (+), connect this wire to the BROWN WIRE that is joined to the DARK BLUE w WHITE STRIPE WIRE, once again do not forget the extra piece of wire that gets connected back to the BROWN WIRE on the BIG HARNESS.
Last, cut the LIGHT GREEN WIRE on the SMALL harness (this should be the LAST WIRE ON THE HARNESS, IF THE WIRE IS NOT LT GREEN, don’t sweat it, it could be several different colors) this wire gets connected to the LIGHT GREEN WIRE that is joined to whatever color wire your harness has for this output, this is for the RIGHT FRONT POSITIVE OUTPUT TWEETERS/SPEAKER circuit, connect the last piece of wire to this and join it back to the LIGHT GREEN WIRE ON THE BIG HARNESS.
This completes the bridging/ reintegration of the factory AMP and TWEETERS to your aftermarket sound system.
Now we have to go back to the wiring diagram that I posted in the earlier steps, go to the smaller harness (there should now only be four or five wires still attached to it) and cut the PURPLE WIRE, this is the wire for the RIGHT FRONT TWETTER NEGATIVE(-) .
Now go back to your joined wires and find the DARK GREEN wire joined to the LIGHT BLUE w BLACK STRIPE WIRE, this the RIGHT FRONT SPEAKER WIRE, you want to JOIN THESE WIRES TOGETHER ALONG WITH ANOTHER STRIP OF WIRE LONG ENOUGH TO REACH THE CUT DARK GREEN WIRE ON THE BIG HARNESS. (I used BLACK wire for all of my bridging of the wires back onto the harness so I would not get confused when connecting and reconnecting all of these wires together).
After joining the wires together join the new piece of wire to the wire FROM THE HARNESS, REMEMBER TO MATH THE COLORS!!! THE DARK GREEN WIRE IS NOW CONNTECTED TO SEVERAL WIRES AND BACK TO ITSELF. (We are doing this to reintegrate the AMP BACK into the system along with the factory tweeters, WITHOUT HAVING TO BUY A REALLY EXPENSIVE Harness.
You will do this for the rest if the wires on the small harness, so the next one will be YELLOW WIRE =( LEFT FRONT TWEETER SPEAKER OUTPUT NEGATIVE (-), connect this to the GRAY WIRE THAT IS JOINED TO THE WHITE WIRE, Don’t forget to add another piece of wire to bridge back to the GRAY WIRE on the BIG harness.
Next is the BLACK WIRE (LEFT FRONT TWEETER SPEAKER OUTPUT POSITIVE (+), connect this wire to the BROWN WIRE that is joined to the DARK BLUE w WHITE STRIPE WIRE, once again do not forget the extra piece of wire that gets connected back to the BROWN WIRE on the BIG HARNESS.
Last, cut the LIGHT GREEN WIRE on the SMALL harness (this should be the LAST WIRE ON THE HARNESS, IF THE WIRE IS NOT LT GREEN, don’t sweat it, it could be several different colors) this wire gets connected to the LIGHT GREEN WIRE that is joined to whatever color wire your harness has for this output, this is for the RIGHT FRONT POSITIVE OUTPUT TWEETERS/SPEAKER circuit, connect the last piece of wire to this and join it back to the LIGHT GREEN WIRE ON THE BIG HARNESS.
This completes the bridging/ reintegration of the factory AMP and TWEETERS to your aftermarket sound system.
Now you can kiss this small harness goodbye, and your work should look like the third and fourth picture.
Plug the big harness back into the factory AMP
RECONNECT your car battery
Start your car, and test your handywork, you should hear sound right away, if you do congratulations, you did it correctly, if not go back to the wiring diagram and see where you went wrong.
If you did it right, pat yourself on the back again and crack open another cold one, you just saved a ton of money and now have a better radio then the crappy stock unit that uses the factory AMP and Tweeters
Plug the big harness back into the factory AMP
RECONNECT your car battery
Start your car, and test your handywork, you should hear sound right away, if you do congratulations, you did it correctly, if not go back to the wiring diagram and see where you went wrong.
If you did it right, pat yourself on the back again and crack open another cold one, you just saved a ton of money and now have a better radio then the crappy stock unit that uses the factory AMP and Tweeters