Radio Question: 1990 Colony Park.

There should be a bundle of wires with an 8 pin connector on the end of it hanging around in there. Then, the other half of the equation is that you would have to fing the other end of those wires at the speakers and unplug the wires that are connected and plug in the others. It is a pain in the butt!

 

I worked for Ford Audio systems from 1991 until they were gobbled up by Visteon.

Back then the "High Level Premium Sound" and/or JBL used a different radio head and amp. The easiest way to identify the High Level / JBL system is by the radio head. Those have the flipper type volume switch. The standard radios had a round twist knob for the volume..

As stated before, the amp is in the rear quarter. They common failed not for heat, but for water. A common term used in my industry was "Damp Amp". The rear quarter glass would leak and that rear well would fill up like a swimming pool submerging the Amp. I have seen some amp arrive totally rusted out.

There was also a cheater "Premium Sound" option then too. This used the base radio but still had the amp in the rear quarter. Same "Damp Amp" problem, but the base radio was a low power output as the amp boosted it.

The back of the standard radios had two long similar plugs on it. One for power, illum etc. The other was the speaker connection. The High Level - JBL radios had just one long plug and one small square plug for a grey shielded "Data Cable" that ran to the amp.

There were aftermarket plug kits available then to convert the Premium sound cars to non-Ford radios. Basically an amp bypass kit.