Ok, I'm no idiot, but I have a real problem now I can't figure out. I have a '91 RS which I just bought not too long ago. There was what seemed like a factory stereo in the car. I had a Pioneer removable face, 45w per channel, CD player in my old car that I switched over to this one. Upon removing the old stereo I found out that there have been people in there messing around before. The stereo/CD player that was in there was from a '91 Century. I used a meter and found out which wires were from the battery (constant power), the ACC (power when key is turned), the ground, and speakers. There ended up being three different ground wires ... confusion number one. I figured it didn't matter which one I used seeing they were all ground. So anyhow the stereo goes in and is working fine. I go to turn my lights on and I hear a pop and the dash lights (including the ones for the climate control) go out. I checked the fuses and they are all fine ... the stereo is still working too. I was wondering if anyone could give me an explination as to what happened and/or how to fix it.

S.K.

 

Your ground is hooked to the brown wire. That wire shows as a ground until you turn your headlights on, at which point it has +12 volts. Hook your ground to the black wire or run a new ground directly to chassis.

 

So that should fix it? I just figured this stuff out .......... it is a fuse. It's a 20 that is located at a terminal for the Tail lights. Go figure. I put another 20 fuse in it and it blew also. Not only are the dash lights out but also the tail lights and turn signals. ........ Ok, so what do I do with all the other grounds if I switch the ground wire to the black one?

S.K.

 

stuff them out of the way and tape them up so they don't touch any other wires or you could tare everything apart and rip them out it's up to you.

 

Thanx guys, that did the trick alright .... everything is working straight again.

S.K.

 

And for anybody else that's reading this thread...

... this is a perfect example of why you should buy the $10 wiring harness instead of hacking up your stock wiring. Granted his car came like this, but all the clowns that cut up their wiring are likely to experience the same sort of problems.

Skantow, since you admit to not being terribly familiar with this, I wanted to ask you just how you attached the wires. Did you crimp them properly or just use the twist & tape method?

 

Hay, cut me some slack man, I said I wasn't an idiot. My dad was in the Navy for 20 yrs doing Aviation Electronics and is now doing Fire and Safety Alarms (commercially). To the point, I picked up a bit from him. I crimpled them, even used female and male connectors on the speakers in case I got the neg. and pos. mixed up ... plus it'll come in handy if I ever need to do anything with them really. I also took the harness out of the old car (that car is dead so it didn't need it anymore) seeing some a$$h0!e cut this ones out. So no taping method here.

S.K.

 

chill out dude. You said you weren't familar with car audio. I don't know your background. I just wanted to make sure that you were doing things right.

 

I'm too upbeat a guy to be getting bent about the comment ... was just having some fun with ya

 

Hm; never had a problem yet, but then again, I know which wires I'm playing with. Why was the wiring messed up for a '91 Century radio? Didn't they use the same connectors?

 

Maybe, I don't really know. That stereo was in the car when I got it. It was connected using clamps, the plug was totally gone, and nothing was labled. This isn't the first time I've put a stereo in a car, but it is the first time I've found three grounds in the center consule. I havn't gotten a shop manual yet so I really had nothing to go by.

 

No plug at all? Wow! Yeah the Camaro I saw that done in had the plug; they cut the harness out of the same car the radio was in. Then they cut off their original harness. So they had the plug for the new radio and the wires from their old harness; and they matched up the wires by color.

 

Yeah well no such luck here everything was gone so far as plug wise, just a bunch of wires. It's all good now, like I said above I used the harness out of my old car.