My CD player came with a harness adapter for my Ford. The CD player has a black wire with a claw-like piece on the end for grounding to the chassis. The Ford adapter has a black wire labeled "chassis ground" but also has a black and white wire labeled "signal ground" and the instructions say to connect the signal ground wire to the black wire on the CD player. Do I also connect the Ford adapter's black chassis ground wire to the CD player's black ground wire, after cutting off the metal piece? Is that normal to connect 3 wires together?

7/28/2008 7:37:31 PM

You don't connect them all together, you connect them in line with each other:

7/28/2008 8:06:26 PM

What I'm working with is 2 harnesses. One plugs into the CD player, the other (sold as an adapter) plugs into the car, and I have to connect the two harnesses. So does this mean I'm supposed to connect two wires on the same (adapter) harness together?

7/28/2008 8:13:33 PM

The whole point of a wiring harness is so you dont cut up the factory wiring in your car. Its supposed to be a neat, "plug in" to your car.

You need to splice the wires between the wiring harness and the CD player harness. Follow the wiring diagram that came with the wiring harness (or adapter, in your case). Take the extra black wire with the metal spade and just put it around a metal bolt on your chassis if you're not sure how the factory is grounded

7/28/2008 8:17:10 PM

just try shit till it works

7/28/2008 8:17:43 PM

Yeah, that's the other problem, there's not a bolt in the radio compartment that I can hook the ground wire to. It's all plastic in there. What the hell was Sony thinking?

7/28/2008 8:27:22 PM

more than likely its for ground loop isolation, hook it with the ground on the harness, if you get radio interference, which is unlikely, run it to a separate ground

7/28/2008 8:34:29 PM

After a call to Crutchfield's customer service, turns out I do twist the 3 wires together. Counterintuitive, but that's what he said to do.

7/28/2008 8:39:41 PM

^^

7/28/2008 8:40:45 PM