gray1102

Today i began the disassembly of my CLK500 I have a Kenwood DDX719 to install along with a large amp. I am stuck on a few things that i have not been able to find, Which cable going to the shifter is the reverse cable and the park cable? I need to hook both of these up to my head unit.
Only other thing i haven't found for sure is a way to get through the firewall, and the back seats, i have the passenger seat out and am running all the wires under the carpet and going to try and get my 1/0 wire to not show when i run my power cables lol. Thanks!

Rudeney

There is no good way to tap into the reverse and park circuits unless you get into the center console indicator LED's and that's tedious. if you buy a CAN bus interface (to use the steering wheel controls) i t often comes with park and reverse signal outputs.

For running wiring, remove the door sill trim - there is a huge wiring harness conduit under there and part of it goes into the trunk.

gray1102

Soo... i cant just attach the wire to the one that comes off the shifter? thats what i was wondering, and do you happen to know the color of the original power wire that was connected to the original head unit so i may use its power souce?

About the CAN bus interface, what exactly does this do? i have a steering wheel controll interface from PAC that will work with my head unit but i honestly am not sure how its going to work since i cant figure out how it connected to the cars console....

Edit: I have the SWI-Jack from PAC

Kevwood

What amp did you buy? Are you replacing all the speakers?

gray1102

Im using the current speakers but im going to power them through the amp. i bought a boss CE2505

Rudeney

I think the SWI-jack has the reverse indicator, but I'm not sure about park. As for tapping into the shifter, you have to break into the LED indicator light assembly. I don't believe the wiring harness has individual signals - it feeds a circuit that decodes the bus signals inside the LED housing.

Kevwood

If the amp isn't 2 ohm stereo stable, keep the gains low of it's going to get mighty toasty - MB OEM speakers are 2 ohm, not 4 ohm.

gray1102

My amp is made to run 4 ohm or 2 ohms it can run on 1 im pretty sure you just have to set up it right.

Kevwood

I'd be keeping the gains fairly low if I were you, not exceeding 50%. That Boss stuff is extremely reasonably priced but reliability is quite low if pushed hard. Not hacking on what you have, just some advice from a few years of experience in the industry.