Speaker/amp issue in 1995 E420

[Jim_]

Last weekend I installed my new Rainbow speakers to replace the pair in my dash, and all did not go according to plan. The passenger side swap was straightforward, once I got past the tight clips. It works fine. The driver's side speaker stumped me because after I removed it I only could find the cell speaker wire, not the main speaker wire.

Long story short, the wire was pinned behind the instrument cluster so after pulling the cluster I was able to free the wire to where it should be. My problem is that once I hooked up the wire to the new speaker, all I get is a clicking sound from that speaker. I swapped in the original speaker to test (it worked before I started) and that one just clicks too.

Hooking up a test speaker directly to my recently-rebuilt Becker seems to play OK. My guess is that I either pulled something loose or somehow shorted something in trying to free the stuck wire.

Does anyone have any troubleshooting suggestions? Should my 95 E420 with "premium audio" and trunk CD changer have a separate amplifier? Where might I find it?

Thanks in advance...

 

[gsxr]

Jim, your USA-spec 1995 E420 will have twin amplifiers in the trunk, on the passenger side behind the carpet. You'll have to remove the trunk carpet to access them. They are silver rectangular boxes. IIRC, one is for left channel (dash+door+rear) and the other is for right channel. To determine if the amp is faulty you can swap them out (they are interchangeable), and see if the problem moves to the other side (right dash speaker clicking).

 

[Jim_]

You're right as always, GSXR! Pulling the passenger side trunk carpet put the two amps in plain view. (I can't figure out how to post a picture of it...)

The rearmost of the two amps drives the left channel. I removed both and connected what was the left-channel (clicking) amp up to the right channel and experienced the same clicking noise on the right. Looks like the left amp is bad. I'm reluctant to try the (good) right channel amp on the left side; after all, something caused the left amp to suddenly fail.

Now to test the amp output and the wiring between the amp and left dash speaker to zero in on the cause of the failure. Thanks for the help!