Today a buddy and I installed an aftermarket stereo in his truck. he has a 97 xlt 4.0 with an AM/FM/Cassette player stock. I could tell that the vehicle had already been tampered with behind the dash as the bolts holding the bezel on were missing and there was a wire from the cig lighter that had been extended using butt splice connectors. I went online and ordered an install kit and wiring harness which ariverd as described. the wiring harness came with 2 connectors, one was power and everything and the other was the speakers. both of the connectors were the same except for the color, one was grey and the other was black. I wired it all up with butt splice connectors and went to install it. once i got the factory stereo out we realized that the stock radio had the same power connector as the wiring kit however the speakers and illumination connector was squarish and not the same one I had connected. we ended up running all new speaker wires to his 2 pairs of kenwoods we installed last weekend and everything seems to work fine now. origionally I had went to tap into the stock wires even though the connector was different. when i looked up the wiring diagram i discovered that the colors of the wires at the speaker were different than at the stereo connector so i was not able to tell which wires went to which speaker so we just added wires.

my question is, Has this connector been changed by the previous owner or did i just get the wrong wiring kit? second is, why do none of the speaker wire colors match what they should be were they connect to the stereo?

 

Mine had the same plugs your talking about so i doubt the harnesses have been tampered with. I believe you need the connectors for the factory amp setup, only place i could find them locally was best buy but i just ran my own wires like you did.

 

thank you for the response. i think i will just leave it the way it is.