MARAUDER Stereo Install with MANY Interior Disassy Pics!

[JoeBoomz]

I finally got off my lazy rump and decided to install my stereo in my Marauder. The system is over 12 years old, I had it in high school in a 92 Grand Marquis. Then I moved into a `96 Grand Marquis. Then I took it out and sold the `96 for cash to get into a Marauder two years ago and the system has been boxed since then. By the time you're through these pics, you will see why I've been putting it off!

Total system install is over 20 hours (maybe I go a bit slow because I'm OCD and only like things done perfectly). Note to would-be thieves: the stereo equipment is OLD and not worth much. Don't bother finding my car and stealing it, you won't be able to sell it for very much. Check Kijiji and don't say I didn't warn you.

I also used this opportunity to run a dedicated 4ga. power wire to my BAP for fuel delivery. The stereo itself is powered by 0ga wire.

First off, here's the passenger side of the engine bay where we will be going to run two power wires to the positive battery terminal.



Here's a shot of the 0ga power wire used to power the stereo. Ran along the passenger side of the car.



Here's a shot of 4ga wire that was also run, this will feed my BAP (and possible future fuel additions). Ran along the passenger side of the car.



Here we have brown Rockford Fosgate "Obsidian" RCA stereo wiring that goes from the deck to the amplifiers in the trunk. This will be run down the middle of the car under the carpet. The driver's seat will come out to do this.



This gorgeous stuff is Rockford Fosgate braided 12ga speaker wire. Four runs of wire total, to the 2 speakers in the back dash, and one to each of the front door speakers.





This is one of TWO power capacitors that I put in the trunk to support the subwoofer power draw.



Here's a shot of our trunk where we will be spending quite a few hours.



First step was to remove the pitiful factory subwoofer. Actually the sound wasn't that bad, which is why I put off the install for so long. I've had worse factory stereos than the Marauder's!


This one is very easy, four bolts hold it to the underside of the rear dash. It only has one plug connecting it and comes right out.


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[JoeBoomz]

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With the factory sub and amp removed we have a lot more room to work in the trunk.



Now we take out the Marauder's nice back seat.



The seat bottom is held in by hooks. You can put your knee up against the base and push it towards the back of the car on either side of the driveline hump and it should unhook and lift up.



Here's a shot of the back seat without the bottom.



The back is hooked vertically with two bolts at the bottom that also hold the left and right seat belts to the frame. An 18mm deep socket gets these out and they weren't very tight in my Marauder.



Once the two bolts are out you can lift the back right off of the frame and take it out of the car. Now you can see what those hooks look like:





Here is the back of the back seat back outside of the car (that's a lot of backs):



Here is the back of the Marauder without any seats:


TRUE STORY - I moved a 6 ft. COFFEE TABLE from Calgary to Edmonton (3 hrs drive) in the back of my 92 Grand Marquis with the back seat removed exactly like this. It fit perfectly between the doors! It was years ago and I wish I had a picture...


Now with the back seat out, we have DIRECT trunk access under this rubber flap:


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[JoeBoomz]

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Rear dash speakers are an easy swap in Marauders that have rear dash metal speaker grills. There are four 6x8 speakers in the Marauder (5x7 will also work).


Some Marauders actually do not have these covers; instead they have carpet overlay on top of the rear speakers and to change them you need to take off the back dash. If this is you, here's what to do:
- Take out the round-head plastic push-pins along the base of the dash that hold it down at the front (one shown in the picture above)
- There is a Phillips head screw on each side of the central brake light on top of the back dash. Take them out.
- The brake light pod will lift straight up and out, unplug the connector for the light
- The dash should pull out at this point, you may have to flex it upwards in the middle slightly.
- You may need to remove the covers on the rear window pillars as well to get the back dash out (I was able to on my previous cars, but did not try in the Marauder).


Four Phillips screws hold each speaker in place (you have to lift the dash up to get at the back screws that are covered a bit by it, but you don't have to remove it if you have speaker grills.



25 WATTS HENCHO EN MEXICO



We'll be replacing these with some more powerful 80 watt RMS Rockford Fosgate Speakers. ;D



With the easy parts done it's time to stop putting off the harder stuff. Let's get the front doors apart.

First step is to take this plastic cover off with a small flathead screwdriver.



...and take the torx screw out that holds the handle in place.


There are screws along the side and bottom of the door to remove next







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[JoeBoomz]

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Here's what it looks like as we take off the passenger side door handle:









You will also have to pull out the switches panel that has window and lock switches. This is the driver one; it has metal bendy tabs that you can push in with a flathead screwdriver to pull it out easier.


Lift gently; as these cars get older, the plastic gets dry and breaks easy!

Out goes the driver door button panel:



CAREFUL - before you try to yank the door off, there is ONE MORE SCREW hiding under the button panel!



The plastic triangles at the top front of the door panel are held into the frame with a metal clip, and held to the door panel by a plastic clip. Pull straight out on them to get them out of the frame, but leave them in for when you lift the door paneling off.



If it comes out, don't worry, it can be put back on easily:



The door panel hangs on with hooks, lift it up to take it off. Don't pull it away just yet, there are wire harnesses to unplug still. Here's the backside of the driver door panel with plugs still connected:


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[JoeBoomz]

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Here is a shot of the underside of the passenger door button panel. You can see what the plastic clips look like. Best way to remove is to pull straight up. You can't get a screwdriver into them very easily to push them open.



Now we can see the inside of the driver and passenger doors. Speaker removal is easy, they're just screwed in.





Now we start taking apart some of the trim on the door frames. The plastic piece you see here is hooked BEHIND the ones around it, so lift it upwards and towards the inside of the car to get it loose:



Door rubbers pull right off, they're only clipped to the metal frame. This is on the passenger side.



Now we will get rid of some of the side kick plates by the front passenger's feet. This one has two push tabs holding it in:



...and it pulls straight out towards the rear of the car:



Here's the backside of the piece:



Now we have to take off the piece at the top on the underside of the dash. It's held in by a couple more push pins and a black hanger which has tabs on the sides. Squeeze them together with your fingers and the piece will drop right off of the hanger.



Once the piece is loose, you have to remove the light bulb. Twist it sideways and it will come right out. Check out the dust on the backside of this piece:



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[JoeBoomz]

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Now that we have the coverings off around the passenger side floor, I can show you the main entry point for the power wires.

There is a large rubber grommet in the passenger side firewall which is used for factory wiring. The large grommet has LOTS of extra space in it to drill holes and run extra wires.

You can see in this picture a vacuum line I have previously run through it for my AutoMeter boost gauge:



So now we feel sorry for any mother giving birth as we try to shove a 0 gauge power wire through a hole in this grommet and understand how difficult it can be to put something large through such a small space!

We drill a hole carefully in the rubber, avoiding the factory wiring AND the metal frame around the grommet. Break a factory wire and you'll have a big mess to fix. Catch the frame and you might have a sharp metal edge that your new power wiring will rub against. So we have to go slowly and carefully. Scary as it sounds, it's not actually too bad to do.

Because the 0ga wire is so big, I start with a small drill bit and work upwards in bit size, finishing with a bit that is slightly smaller than the size of the power wire so the rubber stretches as the wire goes through and seals it up perfectly against the elements.

With the hole drilled, we take a long piece of standard fencing metal tie wire and fold it in half (it will not have an edge to catch anything when folded). We give it a slight upwards bend, and feed the folded end through our drilled hole until we can grab it in the engine bay.

Now we affix the tie wire to the 0ga wire we are going to draw through the firewall:


I wrapped the tie wire around the fat 0ga wire, and then taped it together using ultra-sticky tuck tape. Notice the 3-in-one oil sitting on the floor. The tuck tape is lubed with oil and then we proceed to push, curse, and pull it through the grommet through to the engine bay.


...and finally, jump for joy when complete:




The tie wire is still attached. At this point we cut it off and pull the remainder through.


Time to run some power wire along the side of the car! Let's take the rest of the plastic off along the bottom of the door frame:


This stuff feels like it's going to break when you pull it off. But it holds together pretty good.

Here's what those clips look like:



With that piece off, the other side of the door rubber comes off easily:



Let's get the back one off too:



Now we can get the pillar cover off next to the front passenger seat over the seat belt. It has simple metal clips and it pulls straight out:




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[JoeBoomz]

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Next we remove the plastic cover that goes along side the back seat by the floor on the wall. More metal clips that pull straight out easily:





Now we have a clear run from front to back where we can run the wires. But first we need to open up the wire channels that run along the passenger side of the car on the floor for the factory wiring. They are held closed by tape and some small socket screws:



Opening it up, we see that this Marauder was meant from the factory to have large gauge power wire added to it, with a completely-empty center channel all ready to go!





Next we have to make the same run with our 4ga power wire. We start again by drilling a hole through the firewall grommet:



Again we prepare and feed through tie wire, attach it to our power wire, lube it up, and push, curse, and pull it through to the engine bay:




Now that we're done having our way with the factory grommet, add some silicone around the wires where they enter the grommet to ensure it's 100% sealed up from the elements. Check your wire lengths under the hood before doing this!


Continuing on, the passenger side channel is wide enough to accommodate both the 4ga power wire and the seat wiring that goes away halfway down the side.



The power wires are now run down the passenger side of the car. Here's where they come out of the wiring channel by the back seat:


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[JoeBoomz]

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Here are the power lines running up the back of the car by the wheel well:



...and out into the trunk on the passenger side, ready to power some goodies.



I mounted two power caps here on the passenger side of the trunk. The top of the fuse block shown here will connect to the battery via the 0ga wire. The bottom part will connect to the amps.
The caps are grounded directly into the metal wall.



Now that power wire is run, time to run some speaker wire. We'll start with the front doors. The wire will be run through the wiring boot with the factory wiring. Here's a shot of the INSIDE of the passenger door, towards the wiring boot and the track of the power window:



We pull the cover off the wall by the front passenger feet space to get to the other side of the wiring boot:



It's tie wire time again. Fold it in half and feed it through so it doesn't catch anywhere.





Attach it to the speaker wire and pull it through:





CAUTION: Check your door speaker wiring to ensure it will not interfere with the power window as it rolls down! Do not run the wire BETWEEN the window tracks, and ensure it is tight up against the inside of the door and not hanging loose!

We run the speaker wire down the side of the car through the leftover space in the wire channel (do not run it up against a big power wire, it may cause signal noise, keep them as far apart as possible):



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[JoeBoomz]

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One additional wire is run from the front to the back on the passenger side. It is a small power wire that goes from the front deck to the back amps and is used to remotely turn on the amps when the deck is turned on. You can see it here coming out by the back seat (the small blue wire):



Now we're DONE running wire on the passenger side! We've run so far a 0ga power wire, a 4ga power wire, the braided speaker wire, and the remote amp turn-on wire:



Now we start taking stuff apart on the driver's side. First is this piece with the hood release.



The black plastic filler behind the hood release pops straight out:



And then the plastic kick plate will pull straight out just like the one on the passenger side did:



We will need to loosen the hood release by removing this bolt:



And that gets us enough access to run the speaker wire through to the driver door:



The Rockford Fosgate speakers protrude a bit on the one side so they were mounted upside down to fit perfectly behind the door panel:




At this point, to finish off the speakers in one shot, I also did the ones in the back dash:




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[finster101]

Appears to be lost in the space, time continuim.

[JoeBoomz]

...Continued from Post 9

We're done with the front doors, so let's put them back together. As you put the panels on, pull the factory speaker wire and plug through with the rest of the wires and store it safely in the panel so that it is not dangling free and won't interfere with the power windows:



When putting the button panels back in the door, you can gently push on the plastic tabs the direction that they will be locking. This will make sure the panels aren't loose and will wiggle after re installation. Notice how the clip looks on the back of the panel here, it acts like a hinge.



...because of the way this clip is, you will need to reinstall the button panel like this. It should clip in nice and solid:



Next we will run that little blue wire for the remote amp turn-on under the front dash and to where the head unit resides. There is black coaxial wire running under the dash on the passenger side up to the same place that feeds the antenna for the radio, so we can simply follow and attach to it along the way.





Here's what the enclosure looks like for the head unit (already removed). The red plug you see is the factory radio harness. The black coaxial cable is for the radio antenna.



How will we get the little blue wire up here? Fold some tie wire in half again!



Fish it through to under the dash:



...attach it to the blue wire and pull it on up:



The factory head unit is replaced with an aftermarket deck. To connect in to the factory wiring you can use a wiring harness like the one shown here, and connect all of its wires to the harness that comes out of your new deck. Then plug and play!


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[JoeBoomz]

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Time to run some RCA cables! We need to get under the drivers side dash.



The good news is that the top plate, directly under the steering wheel, does NOT need be removed. There is a plastic kick plate behind it, directly above the pedals, that we will remove instead. It is held in by more plastic snaps that pull out and it will have a lot of dust on the top side of it:





Now we fish some tie wire down to pull up the RCA cables on the driver's side of the dash:





Next we take out the driver's seat! There are four bolts holding it to the floor, covered by plastic caps that pop off easily.

Move the seat back to get the front bolts undone, then move it forward and up to get the back bolts off and then unplug the FOUR (!!) factory plugs under the seat. The seat will fit perfectly out of the driver's door and there should be no need to rotate it sideways.



Now that you can see under the seat, check for money! I found a single lucky penny.
Here's a shot of the plugs under the driver's seat:



The driver's seat belt is held in by a single large torx screw. The plastic cover will pull off (gently - it has a rotational tab that will break easily) to expose the screw.





For reference, here's a picture of the airbag module mounted to the floor beneath the carpet under the driver's seat:


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[MercNasty]

hope to see and hear a video of the system once complete.

[JoeBoomz]

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Here is the driver's side of the Marauder without the driver's seat:



With the hardware gone it was a simple matter to pull up the carpet and run the RCA cables along the driveline hump underneath the carpet.

Here are the RCA cables coming out from under the carpet at the back seat:



"Why can't we run those RCA cables down the wire channels at the side of the car?"

Unfortunately for me I tried it in my `92 and they picked up a lot of noise from the factory power wiring. The RCA's are a LOW level signal which gets greatly amplified before going to the speakers. So any extra noise in the wires is quite audible by the time it passes through the amplifiers.

Other RCA cables might not have this issue. Or the Marauder might not have this issue. I hate doing work twice, and just run them down the middle the first time to be safe. They sound great and I have zero noise from them this way.


The RCA cables are fed under the back seat and a hole is made to bring them into the trunk:



Finally, we did have to run one wire down the driver's side wire channels; the driver's door speaker wire:



Woohoo! We are DONE wiring inside of the car, and the rest of the work is in the trunk! All of the panels, door rubbers, and door sill pieces are put back together.

The work in the trunk mostly involved running wires nicely and zip-tying them together, mounting the amps, drilling and baring metal on holes for grounds, and connecting the wires to the amps nicely. I do have some shots of the work along the way though.


Here is the 4ga wiring upgrade for my BAP, with room in the fuse block for future additions if needed:



The knob for my BAP was moved and mounted in front of the original factory subwoofer mounting bracket in the trunk:



Here's the trunk again, this time filled up with amplifiers:



A picture of me charging the power capacitors up for the first time using the included 1000-ohm resistors:



Up front under the hood, a 250A breaker was added so you can quickly shut power off to the back if you need to disconnect the battery:



And an upgraded battery connector was put on the battery post. This one shows the current voltage at all times:


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[JoeBoomz]

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Here's the connected and installed head unit all done (the bracket that converts double DIN to single DIN is an eBay item):



And finally, when the wires are all run and connected, and the carpet and panels restored, it's time to drop the sub box into the trunk:


The spare tire fits perfectly over top of the sub box, and although I can no longer use my trunk organizer, there is still ample trunk space when needed.


One last great pic; "how does a dad with two kids get 20 hours to work on his stereo install?" Aside from staying up late after the kids are in bed, I was also able to distract them for some time so I could work in the trunk:



Thanks for viewing, it was a lot of work and I hope many people can benefit from the pics of the Marauder interior dis-assembly. The stereo works and sounds great, you can put it to 90% volume and the sound is crystal-clear. Now I need to spend another 20 hours installing Dynamat because the car rattles so much from the bass


UPDATE: Here's a vid of the system in action, I apologize in advance that the camera mic was incapable of capturing the audio, you will see why...