speaker distortion after coolant alarm install

[sulphurman]

Greetings fellow Bongonauts - this is my first post as a recent new owner of a 1998 SGL5 TD AFT (which is lovely)

I've recently installed a Haydn TM-1 combined low coolant/eng temp alarm in the prepped DIN housing with orange BMW clock. That went fine, but a distortion developed on the car stereo as a result, which I perhaps incorrectly attributed to a blown speaker (they're all the original paper Pioneer things).

So I treated myself to a new Kenwood headunit and new speakers all round, installed with the help of the great bongofury factsheet. However, the distortion is still there....

The distorion occurs if any significant level is sent to the rear left/nearside speaker. Setting FADER to front only is fine, setting fader to Rear only and Balance Right (ie one speaker) is fine, but bringing Left Rear back into the mix, so to speak, introduces distortion on all channels.

Any ideas? I'm 100% confident that everything works in isolation - headunit and speakers. The distortion is almost certainly due to the TM-1 in some way, but how? It sounds almost like the signal is too hot, and there's a lack of attenuation.

I dont want to remove the TM-1 obviously, and would like to use all my speakers!

thanks in advance.

SM

[Spencer54]

Are you sure you haven't caused one of the speaker wires to earth out or touch somewhere?
Seems likely that you've been moving stuff around in the vicinity, and now the fronts are playing up.

If you still have the old speakers you can can give this a simple test by connecting the speakers directly to headunit.
Take the cabling out of the equation, and see how you go - that's where I'd start.

Only other possibility is that the live feed or earth feed you chose are somehow interfering.
I picked an earth that was actually live once the lights went on, that sent the alarm bonkers.
Try earthing directly to the chassis as well if you already haven't.

[jimmo62]

could be interference from the clock if it is fluorescent not LED. Try pulling the alarm and cubby out a bit and see if the interference changes. If so you may need some metal screening between the clock and the radio