Speaker whine.

[James H]

I don't know how many of you have had to deal with this, but after I put in a different radio I started hearing an obnoxious whine from my alternator through my speakers. Who ever put the old radio in cut the harnesses and put in all new speaker wires. ( Eventually I will splice on replacement connectors and do it right...) So I chased it, put a filter on the ground strap that only made it slightly better, redid the wiring, checked speaker polarity, relocated the ground a few times. All to no avail. After 2 weeks with out my dad cover on, I found that if I move the deck, the whine goes away... Here in a bit I will be putting a ground strap from the deck case to the body. Apparently the original deck mounting brackets don't ground new decks well enough. (FYI 88 B2 Eddie Bauer w/ premium sound amp bypassed)

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[James H]

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[wildbill23c]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with this same issue, the factory amp isn't bypassed in mine. The new alternator is in, and that wasn't completely the problem, although the whine isn't quite as bad. The catch with mine though is it seems if I drive around for a while about 15 miles or longer eventually I guess it "warms" up and then I can listen to FM radio stations without the whine, AM is fine, but FM is where I get all the whining noise. Doesn't do this with a cassette tape only on FM.

 

[James H]

Sounds like you have interference in the antenna. I never checked am, but playing my mp3s off the thumb drive, or with the radio off it would do it. You should check your antenna ground and look into a RF filter for the antenna. Mine was a higher pitch whine that changes with engine speed and load. Depending on your deck you might look at your mounting set up. I stole the brackets off the old radio (aftermarket) and screwed them into my new frame. Come to find out, yes it was a bad ground through the reach, but it was because the mounting screws were coming loose and the case was covered with plastic causing bad/ little contact. When I moved the deck it would go away, I have replaced the mount screws with better hardware and removed the plastic and now the whine is gone... I was kinda going nuts for a bit because I would pull the deck to try and chase the source, and tightened the mount screws every time, find nothing, put it back and a few hours or days later it would come back.

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[wildbill23c]

I plan on replacing the stereo anyhow here soon so I'll let the shop deal with that mess, I'm not a radio guy and don't want to mess with tearing the dash apart to change the stereo and mess with fixing the noise issues. When I talked to the stereo shop a while back they said they'd take care of it all when I bring it in to have the stereo replaced. I keep putting it off as I keep finding other things to tend to and don't have any time off work to take it over to have it done. Not really a high priority right now anyhow.

 

[JerryC]

My 2 cents, check the ground from the driver side cylinder head to the firewall. or as a test run a ground lead from the negative post of the battery to the radio ground and see if that helps.

 

[wildbill23c]

My 2 cents, check the ground from the driver side cylinder head to the firewall. or as a test run a ground lead from the negative post of the battery to the radio ground and see if that helps.

I'll try it but at this point I'm still wanting a different stereo anyhow LOL. Although not sure really what to do I've had terrible luck with CD player stereos so not sure where to really go, possibly a head unit with satellite radio and aux port for an MP3 player or other sort of media player and no I don't want that touch screen stuff, not in the bronco 2 anyhow.

I should also mention on FM is the only time it has the annoying whining...also only on certain frequencies, and the whine doesn't change with vehicle speed.

 

[JerryC]

I'll try it but at this point I'm still wanting a different stereo anyhow LOL. Although not sure really what to do I've had terrible luck with CD player stereos so not sure where to really go, possibly a head unit with satellite radio and aux port for an MP3 player or other sort of media player and no I don't want that touch screen stuff, not in the bronco 2 anyhow.

I should also mention on FM is the only time it has the annoying whining...also only on certain frequencies, and the whine doesn't change with vehicle speed.

Ignore the CD player and use a USB memory stick, most radios will use the USB stick. It holds waaaaaayyyyy more songs and most importantly it is not affected by vibration or bumps. You can get them in super small sizes too so that they don't get in the way and harder to detect by just looking in the window for those snatch and grab guys.
This is the one I use:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FYNSUA/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[wildbill23c]

I was thinking about the same thing actually. I don't really have that many CD's anymore anyhow LOL.