1997 Mercury Mystique, ignition wire?

Hi guys!

New to this forum but it seems to be a great resource so far--my name's Daniel and I'm almost done installing a new head unit in my mom's car, but I'm having to re-route the constant and switched positive leads, as the original ones in the oem harness are dead.  Everything else is wired up correctly and insulated.

The car is a 1997 Mercury Mystique.

I routed the constant lead to the cigarette lighter and it works, and I'm about to route the switched lead to the ignition switch harness, but out of the ~8 wires there, the two that look to be positive leads, one is red and one is RED / black.  The car has no alarm, but on a whim I looked at the wiring listing for the alarm on this site and it listed the red wire in the ignition harness as a constant 12v source.  Does that make the RED / black lead the switched lead or is it another one or what?

Knowing exactly Jack about Mercuries, I can't tell you. However, I'd recomment pulling out your trusty, dusty DMM/Meter or a test lamp and finding out for sure.

Yeah I couldn't wait for the reply but still wanted the input, so I went ahead and used a multimeter and started pushing a pin thru diff. wires.  neither one of the two I mentioned were it.  I found a green wire after taking a second look at the wiring diagrams for the car that is activated when the ignition is put to On, so I used that.  Thanks!

The radio now works beautifully--I'm about to test the CD player, then finish insulating pinholes and connections, and mount the head unit in the dash =>.  I'm so happy!!! :)

Good to hear! Never be afraid to pull out the trusty DMM and do some inspecting on your own.