Ive gone and installed a Cd player and i thought I had it all figured out. But Now theres a drw on the system somewhere. Does anone know what whire do what under the dash? Heres a pic to look at.

 

I'm going thru the very same thing right now. I used the red wire from the stock radio harness for switched power and the red/blue for always on, everything works but the battery is dead in one-two days. Yesterday I put everything on the switched wire so my battery should be fine today. I hope somebody can help

 

I looked in my Haynes manual and it says that the blue/brown wire is ignition power yet my batt is dead so I cannot tell you the outcome of it yet. I have a good question on those harnesses for stereos what wire means what.

Red= ignition power?
Yellow=constant power??
orange=Illumination?

they wire all need to be connected in order for the deck to work so I need to know what wire in the dash to hook em up to.

 

so i think I figured it out

Red= is ignition power and goes to teh red/blue connection to stock radio

Yellow= Constant power from teh cigarette lighter Blue/yellow

Orange= Illumination power Red/Green

 

ehh wrong Red/blue is dimmer on 1981-83 models. So connect your ignition source to Green/yellow

 

ehh wrong Red/blue is dimmer on 1981-83 models. So connect your ignition source to Green/yellow. on instrument panel

 

I just used the red wire from the clip that went to the old radio. I snipped off the plastic connector and spliced the wires together myself.

 

I have my switched and unswitched leads for my cd player and amp hooked to the red lead from the stock radio. Everything works but I can't save programed stations. If I try to hook to a constant hot wire it kills the battery. weird huh. I have an 84

 

The radio probably has two power connections, one for constant and one for when the car is on only. The constant will just save the memory and draw little power. Either that, or it has some other connector that's supposed to just indicate if the ignition switch is on. Basically somehow it's got to "know" whether the car is on or off or it will drain your battery.

 

Hook up your constant wire to the cigarette lighter wire the blue/Yellow one that shold do it. Or you could hook it up to the blue/yellow going to the clock.

I finally found a wire for the ignition source I used a black/blue wire in a harness under the dimmer switch for my Player and amp.

hope it helps