Well ... I didn't really expect this to turn into a multi-weekend job but I'm happy with the end result. I'm sure an experienced person would have had it done in a few hours but for me, pretty much every step was a challenge and a puzzle
That's a new
Boss Elite BE10ACP from Crutchfield.
The real reason why the right speaker wasn't working was actually the speaker itself. I discovered that after installing the new radio. It's a short circuit inside the speaker itself. I probably didn't need a new radio just to get the sound working but we really wanted the phone integration. This new one is working great with Android Auto. It's a big removable screen but not too big. It's not blocking anything.
I should have taken a deal that Crutchfield had on speakers but I really wanted to get this done this weekend so I raced out to Best Buy and bought some relatively
cheap speakers and then realized that they only had spade connectors rather than the two pin sockets which I guess are Ford specific. Then I went to another Best Buy (lots of things are out of stock right now) and got some of
these which are intended for Ford E-Series and I was sure was the same thing but no, they don't fit.
So ... a warning for anyone replacing door speakers in a Ford E-Series. That connector on the old speaker and the one on the adaptor with wires look identical to my eyes and the plug in the door does seem to fit into it and they even electrically connect but they just don't click / lock together no matter how hard I push.
So ... not to be beaten I ended up making my own adaptor by removing the socket from the old speaker, chopping the new connector off the wires and soldering the wires to the new connector and wrapping with lots of tape.
One of
these went in the blank hole between the two DC sockets to give easy USB connection for phones and auxiliary analog audio input if we ever want that.
Luckily the shorted speaker didn't damage the output circuitry of the new radio. In years gone by it probably would have.
The service from Crutchfield was great. I got their "ReadyHarness" service so it was ready to plug into the Ford harness behind it. The only splicing I had to do was for the reverse gear and parking brake. The old radio already had those going to it. I just had to figure out which wire was which.
When I find what looks like those same adaptors on Crutchfield, they list them as not fitting a 2016 Ford E450 so Crutchfield's info is good.