I have a 1997 Olds Achieva... I'm replacing the factory stereo with a new one.

I bought a wire harness to connect the factory wires with the new stereo wires. The stereo ground wire is one that is to be connected to a metal surface and screw.

However, the wire harness I bought also has a ground wire. But beings the stereo ground wire connects to a metal surface, the ground wire from the wire harness has no where to go.

Should the wire harness' ground be connected to something somehow? I tried leaving it disconnected with just the stereo ground wire grounded to a metal surface, but I didn't get any power. All the other wires are connected properly.

Any help or insight is appreciated.

 

Cut the eye loop off the join the two grounds. You may also reqiure your antenna lead to be plugged in. As some decks require both to power power up.

 

Measure the ground impedence of the ground in the factory harness...I bet it is not great. I like to run dedicated ground and power to my head units with 12AWG wire. You might just like to as well.

 

This is what I was thinking. Before I go cutting the loop off... does anyone else agree with this, just so that I'm 100% doing the right thing.

Thanks for the help Smartass.

 

NO DON'T CUT!
I would recommend NOT cutting the loop off the harness, screw this loop down to a good metal ground point, as factory grounds are not usually that great. If you really want you can connect the factory ground to this new ground as well.

If your antenna has to be plugged in for your deck to power up this usually means your ground sucks.

 

Just do it. It's no big deal to cut off that ring, you don't need the ring to ground to metal anyway. Since you tried grounding elsewhere (and that didn't seem to work) just use the factory ground because the factory ground obviously does work. So, ground through the harness and if you get additional noise or other performance issues, then revisit the ground and try to ground elsewhere.

OR . . . if you don't want to cut the ring, just twist the harness ground aroung the ring and tape it up as a temporary test. If it works fine, then cut it and solder them together.

 

I cut the loop off and joined both ground wires... now it works.

Thanks for the help.

 

SOoooo the goose and the chicken meet at last...