any stero wiring guru's out there?
 

alright here's the story... my g/f drives a 99 jetta and she had been wanting a cd player for awhile. So, being the nice guy i am i bought her a nice new one and was going to install it last night.

Normally it would be no sweat b/c i'd just go get a wiring harness and not have to worry about knowing the right wires to splice and all that but i couldnt get my hands on a wiring harness yest eve. and i had to get it done yest b/c she left on a business trip this morn.

I got the factory unit out no prob then realized that VW color-codes thier wires like a blind person... so i couldnt go off the colors. There was a small diagram on the factory unit that showed what the wires were for and i managed to use that to match up all the speakers.

BUT here comes the pisser.... i needed to find 2 wires... 2 WIRES to finish! the ACC wire (red for normal cars) and POWER wire (yellow) but VW doesnt seem to have red or yellow crayons in thier schoolbox. I have installed a few stereos in my day so i'm no noob to it but this had me stumpt (sp?)!

So what i did was cut the wires i THOUGHT were the power wires (b/c they were thicker than the rest) and i plugged the plug into the ex radio again and - no power... which means i must have cut the power. Basically 3 wires to choose from.... two that are red with a white stripe and an orange one.

now either of the red/whites and the yellow spark when contacted but the two red/whites dont spark if you contact them. however i tried every possible combination with the two wires from the new head unit and these 3 wires with no go...

now that i've ranted here's the question: i looked for a long time for something to attach the ground to b/c everything in behind the radio was plasitc.. i ended up putting it around a screw holding the A/C controls in place. However, i just though about it this morning and i dont think that screw is actually making contact with any grounded metal part of the frame.

Would the ground not making this contact keep the unit from getting power?

Also... since the red/whites and the orange sparked wouldnt that mean the red/whites are running + and the orange is running - ? So then should the ground be connected to the orange b/c its running - ? The factory unit was not directly grounded anywhere in the dash which now leads me to believe that one of those wires is the ground.... i cant get back to work on it for awhile but this is what im thinking:

one of the red/whites is ACC
one of the red/whites is POWER
the orange is the ground

anywhoo... any insight on this?

On the 2000 Jetta, Red/white is 12v constant, orange is ground, and there should be red/yellow - this is the 12v switched...hopefully this is the same with the 99...

good luck

++schmeckp

dude you dont know how much i appreciate that... that thing had me pissed off SO much last night!

Just more proof that lancerforums ownz: i posted the same question on the VWVORTEX forums and none of them knew crap about it.

I guess when i get a chance to work on it again i'll have to disconnect the ground from the screw i have it on and connect it to the orange.

just to clarify one final time... the ground not being in connection with the grounded frame would cause the head unit to recieve no power even if the power wires are connected?

yeah, if you don't have a ground, you aren't going to get power to flow...so, no orange connected to the radio ground, and you won't get anything...