Aftermarket and OEM headunit both installed and working?

Oktain

Canuck Admin
Staff member
Feb 9, 2012
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Sudbury, ON
I'm working on a hypothetical situation in my head here.

I have a 2016 F250 for work, and obviously not having an AUX, or bluetooth in the truck while I"m driving sucks. I have an FM transmitter but the quality sucks.

My question is, how would I go about installing an aftermarket headunit in this truck, while keeping the OEM radio both installed, and functioning properly?

I have a steel center console that I could make a little box out of to hide the aftermarket unit in there, so that's not an issue, and I know that Metra sells OEM harness plugs, so this is what I'm thinking... Audio Guru's tell me if I'm on the right track here.

I'm thinking of making a splitter harness, using the Metra connector to the factory harness, an OEM radio plug, and the plug for the aftermarket radio. I would essentially be tapping the factory harness.

BUT

Should I worry about back feeding into whichever head unit isn't playing music? I'm thinking of running diodes in line, but would that cause any issues?

Also, the only reason I'm doing this is because I have a Kenwood head unit in a box that's collecting dust in my garage. If I do this right the mechanics at work won't notice what I've done, and I won't get into shit for modifying a company vehicle, would only cost me about 20 bucks in harness plugs too.
 

Nasty

Active Member
Mar 11, 2015
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Northern califas
If it's anything like a k2 it's going to be a pain. Even if you.split it, it's still getting signal from oem which might give you loud chimes and funky bluetooth
 

Oktain

Canuck Admin
Staff member
Feb 9, 2012
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Sudbury, ON
If it's anything like a k2 it's going to be a pain. Even if you.split it, it's still getting signal from oem which might give you loud chimes and funky bluetooth

Such as when I'm listening to music through the aftermarket headunit and then I open a door?
 

ScottyBoy

The LED Man
Apr 6, 2012
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You basically have two options to get this to work. The diodes won't work right on speaker wires.
1. You can just wire it up and mount some aftermarket speakers somewhere as well, like under or behind the seats.
2. The second option would be to wire relays up to the speaker wires and have the remote wire from the new radio trigger the relays to switch the speakers over to the new radio once it's turned on. It would be really complicated as far as the wiring, but it can be done with two relays on each speaker. The end result would be that whenever you turn on the new radio, it automatically switches the speakers over, so it's pretty seamless.