Stereo wiring harnesses - am I just crazy?

[lparsons]

I thought there used to be several companies that made wiring harnesses for varied combinations of "deck made by XX" to "car made by YY".

I am asking this because I pulled out the (pioneer DEH-41) aftermarket deck that the previous owner installed in my car and the wiring job left much to be desired. Frankly, it looks like it was spliced by a 6-year-old who forgot to take their ritalin. The fact that it ever worked at all is now a mystery to me.

With that said, I'm willing to admit that I am far from being a great electrician myself. I'd like to either re-do the wiring with a proper harness, or replace the deck with a unit that I could use a proper harness with.

Do these exist? I thought they did, but I'm finding ambiguous information through google. Circuit city claims to have one, that I'm going to go look at later, but I don't know what it is supposed to connect to. Best buy doesn't seem to list squat for wiring to ford.

Similarly, if there is a particular brand of stereo that has a good selection of wiring harnesses available, I am considering replacing this old CD player anyways. I'm not an audiophile, and I don't play it loud, so I don't need anything fancy. Really, I mostly listen to jazz or NPR.

 

[gcomfx.com]

Best Buy told me they had TWO choices for harness adapters to go from the dual deck to a single CD player AND keep the stock amp working. I wasn't sure what I had, so when I pulled my CD player out to put my Wideband in it's place. I pulled the harnesses as well. I'll be taking them into Best Buy to see which of the two adapters I need.

If someone hacked up the factory harness, won't you need that? You could try a salvage yard or ebay if so.

 

[lparsons]

Best Buy told me they had TWO choices for harness adapters to go from the dual deck to a single CD player AND keep the stock amp working. I wasn't sure what I had, so when I pulled my CD player out to put my Wideband in it's place. I pulled the harnesses as well. I'll be taking them into Best Buy to see which of the two adapters I need.

If someone hacked up the factory harness, won't you need that? You could try a salvage yard or ebay if so.

I may have been unclear. It looks like the factory wiring is still there, and when the previous dolt installed the aftermarket deck, they then spliced into it after the joint for the factory harness.

Something like

-------
=========={}=<-------- Deck
-------

Going:

factory wiring - factory joint - joint to factory joint (opposite gender) - big f'ugly mess - deck

And I suspect that some of the clipped wires in the big f'ugly mess are likely my problem - as some wires start at point A and then end as a clipped wire hanging out in never-neverland. I could be mistaken, but I doubt they're supposed to do that...

 

[gcomfx.com]

There could be wires not used.... but sounds like a mess indeed.

Best Buy told me they had the connectors for the main harness. Two options, one for the mach 460 or whatever it is. The guy pointed to a few out on the sales floor. They were hanging up, not hiding in the back.

 

[lparsons]

There could be wires not used.... but sounds like a mess indeed.

Best Buy told me they had the connectors for the main harness. Two options, one for the mach 460 or whatever it is. The guy pointed to a few out on the sales floor. They were hanging up, not hiding in the back.

Well, it could be that the

series of tubes

didn't lead me to the right item at bestbuy. (sorry, I couldn't resist...)

But just to be extra specific, I am hoping to find something that will plug in to the jack on the back of my deck, and mate up to the wiring harness in the car. Such a thing does exist, right? Or am I just making this up?

FWIW, I've seen claims of such things existing for other cars - there's an identical CD player to mine currently being sold on ebay, that claims to have a wiring harness included for GM vehicles.

 

[kck6894]

They do make two different types. They will not plug directly into your radio though. You will have to splice the connectors to the radio's wiring harness. Pretty simple and can be done very clean if you use some simple butt connectors.
Ford made two different harnesses. One was like the pic below. It had one grey and on black plug. The gry plug carries all the power and grounds. The black plug carries all the speakers.
View attachment 386533

The make a second set that still uses the gry plug with the power and ground wires and then they use a second plug that has a metal case and contains shielded wires. This is more of a square plug and it long a long thin plug like the two above.

Premium sound adapter

 

[gcomfx.com]

Sweet... I"ll have to compare those pics to my stuff. That looks a LOT cheaper and I can solder and heat shrink it all really nice to the CD player plug to make my own harness.

My biggest concern is trying to use the factory amp. If I can't, that sucker is coming out of there. LOL