My 1996 Thunderbird Sport
This was a project that I had worked on for a couple of years but had only put 6k miles or so on and decided it was time to part with it since I didn’t drive it enough. I did a stereo system in it that consisted of a Pioneer AVIC-Z120BT, 2 sets of JL Audio ZR 5.25” components, a JL Audio HD900/5 five channel system amp, 2 JL Audio 8” W7 subwoofers, an Audiocontrol Matrix line driver, all JL interconnects, and JL 12ga wiring to every component.
Shortly after I bought the truck is when I decided it was time to put the car up for sale as I would be driving either the Expy or my A4 far more often than the Thunderbird. Asking price was about 5k with all of the equipment in it and all the modifications I had done and 80k miles on the clock. She went nowhere quickly. So… I started stealing parts.
The first thing that was yanked from the car was the head unit. I used the PAC RP4-FD11 wiring harness which kept my steering wheel controls functional, gave me subwoofer inputs for the factory subwoofer, inputs for the factory AUX jack, and inputs to send audio from the Rear Seat Entertainment unit to the new head unit. The only inputs I chose to utilize at this time were the factory subwoofer and the factory AUX input. I also decided to run a set of three RCAs up to the RSE with bare wire on one end that could be used to solder to the input board on the end of the unit so that I could output audio/video from the head unit to the back since the AVIC unit is dual-zone capable. This actually worked out very well but disassembly of the RSE unit is a touch more difficult. It has VERY small hex head screws holding it together… after a half hour of using needle nose pliers… I decided to drill out all of the holes and pull the cover off and threw it to the side.
Pictures of my nearly finished radio harness and the modified RCA cabling for the RSE
I was happy with this for a little while… But the Thunderbird still hadn’t sold after about another month. So out came the rest of the equipment to lower the price to near blue book.
A whole mess-o-wire came out of the Thunderbird
I decided to dedicate a weekend to getting all my doors and interior trim apart and getting wires run and things all sorted. Once that weekend came, it was 90 degrees outside and what joyous fun that was. I started with one of my new favorite tools… a 8’ long section of RG6 cabling and some wire pulling lube (basically KY but comes in a gallon tub… maybe you can get KY in a gallon tub… I dunno). The first step was figuring out the best location for the amplifier. If you’ve got an Expy that’s nearly fully loaded and have never had one apart, I’ll be the first to tell you that stashing things, especially an amplifier, is not so much an easy task. Luckily my amplifier was just small enough that I could fit it under the radio inside the dash. Believe me when I say it was a tight fit once all the wire got to it.
