So the other day I was driving and noticed there was no sound coming from the driver's side. I messed with the balance to confirm, and sure enough, no power going to the speakers at all.

I haven't had time to screw around with it, but noticed today the driver side was working again, with a little static and crackling at times.

What would be a good place to start looking? Do I check the wires to the speakers, the wires to the amp, preouts? Once in a while my amp will overheat and cause a channel to cut out... but this wouldn't explain the static today, right?

I'm just not looking forward to ripping apart the entire car.

 

you amp could be going bad if its overheating that many times. Invest in a small computer fan to put somewhere near the amp. The solder connections in the amp are probably starting to come loose and cause problems.

 

It could also be the speaker wire coming out of the amp, if it is loose it will do this. It happened to me.

 

Where are the crossovers for your components? If they are in the door and not protected, the terminals could be rusting causing the issue.

 

*Really weird update*

Still haven't got a chance to look at this, but have noticed something even stranger...

Upon closer inspection, the driver side speakers ARE working. However, there is no sound coming from the tweeter, only from the woofer. When I put the balance all the way to the left and turn it way up, I can hear sound clearly coming from the woofer. It's about 25% as loud as the passenger woofer, however.

This REALLY confuses me, as it eliminates a loose wire. X-overs are under the dash, so they didn't get wet.

Any thoughts on this?

 

First, if the amp is easily accessible, swap the RCA L/R, if the problem stays on the drivers side, then you can elim the source unit and RCAs, swap the RCA's back to normal. Now, swap the speaker output wires from the amp to the crossovers L/R, if the problem stays with the drivers side you've eliminated the wires running from the amp to the crossover and the amp itself, now you'll have to get to the crossovers, switch the L/R crossovers and see if the problem moves, if it doesn't you'll eliminated the crossover, finally swap speakers from one door to the next, if the problem still stays on the drivers side then you've eliminated the drivers and isolated the wires running from the crossover to the speakers.

Before doing any of this I'd at least spot check the wires at the speaker terminals, crossover terminals and amp terminals.

The rest is just normal troubleshootng.

 

With regards to the amp overheating, I had the same issue and modded 5 inline computer fans on amp.

 

You get it fixed yet?