94 Ford F150 wiring problem

I did a search to try to find an answer, but to no avail.  Here is my problem.  I am installing a Clarion cd player in a friends 94 F150. I got the wiring harness for it, wired it up, and everything appears to be working, except there is no sound. I was about to take the clarion head unit out, when a wire that was supposed to not be used hit the chassis of the head unit, sparked and all of a sudden there was sound. The wire is connected to the factory harness, not the head unit. So I played around with it for a little while to figure out what that wire was.  Well, shut off power and turned it back on, and again no sound. So I grouded the wire again, sound comes on, but if I hold the wire to the ground, it blows the fuse for the radio(factory one, not on back of head unit). I am totally confused as to what to do. It seems like that wire is some sort of remote wire, but then again, it doesn't.  Here is a pic of the wiring harness:

[img]https://www.vdubaddiction.com/~gti16vman/pics/wire.jpg[/img]

Both plugs on the factory head unit are the rectangular ones, one has speaker wires and the other power, ground, etc.  As you can see in the picture, I only have the ignition power, constant power and ground connected right now.  It was when the solid orange wire touched the chassis that the sound came on.  I thought you had to have the square plug to have a factory amp, but I guess not.  I have no problem bypassing the factory amp, if there is one.  Anyway, any guidance would be appreciated. 

don't connect the illumination and/or dimmer wires unless you absolutely need those features.  Instead of leaving the ends bare, tape each end up.

Make sure the ground connection is a good one, and if possible don't use the factory ground.  Find yourself a good ground somewhere behind the radio and run the radio's wire straight to there.

Your vehicle does not have a factory amplifier, although just in case there is, make sure you hook up the blue/white wire in the harness to your aftermarket radio.

And finally double check to make sure all the speaker wires are properly connected and none of them are touching each other or touching a part of bare metal.  If this happens the radio will go into protect mode--it will appear to function normally, but there will be no sound output until the shorted wire is fixed.

The illumination wire was not connected.  It was the orange wire that connected to the factory plug, and was not connected to the head unit.  The orange wire was connected thru the harness to a factory wire.  Whatever that factory wire was, caused there to be sound.  The speaker wires are fine, as far as I can tell.  If I touch the factory wire to ground, I get sound.  Then if I turn off the ignition, and turn it back on, there is no sound again.  There are like 3 wires from the factory harness that are not connected to anything on the head unit.  Ok, here is the best I can explain it, the right side is the oem plug from the head unit and the left side is the harness I bought that is connected to the head unit:

blue/white           -         no wire

blue                     -          no wire

black                   -          ground

orange                -          wire (unknown function)

ORANGE / white      -        wire (unknown function)

red                       -          ignition power wire

ORANGE / black     -         no wire

yellow                 -          constant power wire

https://www.vdubaddiction.com/~gti16vman/pics/wire.jpg

There is the link for the pic of the harness again.  I am not sure if I am getting across what the problem is.  If you look at the pic, the orange wire that I stripped the end on is touched to ground, I suddenly get sound.  Otherwise, with all those wires capped, there is nothing.

okie let's clear up a lil terminology.  These are not necessarily the only correct ways to say them, but this seems to be what most people use for terminology.  When I say "factory harness" I'm talking about the plugs that are built in to the vehicle's wiring.  The factory harness usually has female connectors, and plugs in to the back of the factory radio.  When I say "aftermarket harness" or "wiring harness" I usually mean the metra harnesses you buy to install an aftermarket deck.   These "aftermarket harnesses" plug in to the "Factory harness", and then the other end (the one with the bare wires) goes to the bare wire ends of the "aftermarket head unit's harness."  When I say "aftermarket head unit's harness" I mean the harness that plugs in to the back of the aftermarket deck (the brand-specific plugs).  When I say "head unit" I always mean the aftermarket unit, unless I specifically call it the "factory head unit."

 at one point you said "the wire is connected to the factory harness".  Do you mean the factory plugs were missing?  Or did you mean that the bare wire ends were from the aftermarket harness that was already plugged in to the factory harness?

Sorry I'm having such a hard time understanding you but I'm sure as soon as we get it all cleared up I can help you figure this all out.