Newbie Installing CD player

I want to install my Sony Xplod CD-L600X cd player into my 1991 Buick Skylark. This is my first time installing a cd player because Circuit City installed it once in my other car. I bought the wire harness that fits my car. I have no idea what to do from there because the back of my cd player has female port from where the old wire harness from my Lebaron went to. Do I cut that off or do I try and take the male port off of my Lebaron's harness and combine it onto the wire harness I bought for my Buick. If so how do I do it? If I do cut it off would I just follow the wire diagram and use electrical tape to connect my connections? Help would be much appreciated.

is it a ribbon cable????

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Installer - Circuit City Roadshop(2 1/2 years n counting)
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Alpine CDA7894(soon to be the cda9815)
Pioneer XM unit(soon to be direct link alpine)
Audiovox 995C alarm/remote start

What is a ribbon cable?

It is just wires if that is what you mean.

I'm not sure about the wiring at this point, but I can tell you to splice or solder any wire connections you may have to do. Just twisting wires together and taping does not make a secure connection, and you run the risk of them comming apart later on down the road. Always splice using the proper crimp connectors, or solder if you know how to.

Just to make sure I read your post correctly... Circuit City installed this CD player into another car of yours. You have removed it from that car and want to install it into your Skylark. The CD player has an existing wire harness that you have not cut yet, but has a female plug that connected to another harness?

My first thoughts are if the harness connected to the CD player was from the factory (Sony), then I would not cut it yet. You need the proper harness to intagrate it into your new system, and Circuit City might have it still. Let me do some research and I'll get back to you

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Squirrel
"No more Cpt. Kirk chit chat"
If its too loud, then you're too old
Donate to the12volt.com

The wire harness originally in the car is connected to the factory radio. That has a male plug. I bought a wire harness connecter from Wal-mart. It has the female plug that fits my cars harness and the other end is bare wires. I saved the wire harness Circuit City put on my old car because of the one connectors that plug into my CD player. SO I don't know if I want to cut the connector off of my cd player and splice the wires from my store bought harness.

I'm not quite sure if i understand what you posted, but i think i have an idea.  You need to take the harness that goes with your cd player and solder/crimp it to the harness you bought to connect it to your new car. It sounds like your harness for your deck is connected to the adapter harness for your old car.  If you remove it, you'd have a female plug that fits your old car, and a male plug that fits your cd player.  If this is the case, you need to seperate the two harnesses, and hook your cd player harnesss to the new one you bought and plug it into your car.  Is this case, if not correct me where I'm wrong, so we can better help you out.

That's what I was trying to figure out how to say
The Wal Mart harness (female plug) will attatch to your factory wiring plug (the one that goes into the factory headunit) and you will have the other end of it with the bare wires.

As long as you have the wiring diagram for the Sony CD player harness and the Wal Mart harness, then cut the end off the Sony harness and splice it into the bare wires of the Wal Mart harness. Make sure you are cutting the end off that does not attatch to the CD player (you want to cut off the part that would have connected with the Lebarron's wiring), you'll still need the CD player connection to conect to the CD player in a miunute! Make sure to leave about an inch or 2 of wire when you cut, so that if you make a mistake you can splice it back together. You will need to match the wire functions from the 2 wiring diagrams (the Sony diagram and the Wal Mart harness diagram), not necessarily the colors! What you should end up with is...

Factory wiring --> (no splice needed, use the connectors) --> Wal Mart harness --> (splice needed, wire to wire based on diagrams) --> Sony harness --> CD player

You did the right thing getting the Walmart harness, that way you wont have to cut any "factory wiring" and can easily replace the old headunit if you sell the car. Most aftermarket headunits come with their own harnesses, but they are bare on the other end like the Wal Mart one you got. That makes most people believe that they have to cut the factory wiring to make it work, when if fact all you need is another harness to splice into (like you've already got). More than likely Circuit City had the Exact installation harness for your old lebarron and used it instead of this way, and that's why it had the connector on the other end as well (because it was specifically designed to integrate with the lebarron). Those harnesses can be hard to find unless you're an installer, which is why you're left doing it this way.

Please let me know if I've made you more confused!

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Squirrel
"No more Cpt. Kirk chit chat"
If its too loud, then you're too old
Donate to the12volt.com

So you have a harness that plugs into your Buick, with plain wire at the other end.

You have another harness that was connected together by a Circuit City installer, which has Sony at one end, Chrysler at the other end.

So, what you want to do is cut the Chrysler part away, and save it for if you buy another Chrysler, give it to a friend, whatever.

Now, you should have one Sony harness and one Buick harness left over...connect these two together, color-for-color.

As wvsquirrel pointed out, just twisting and taping the wires toghether isn't very reliable. There is much debate amongst installers as to whether crimping or soldering is best, but both can work if done correctly. Wal-Mart sells red butt connectors and crappy crimpers that would probably get the job done; I'd imagine they probably sell soldering supplies too.

If you're not comfortable connecting wires, go to Circuit City and ask for a Smart Cable. You buy two separate pieces----a Buick piece and a Sony piece----and then they simply plug together; no crimping or soldering required.

SO the harness that I got from my Lebaron is a specially made one with a connecter into my cd player. Then from what I am understanding I would cut the one end of my cd players harness and splice it to the walmart harness. Or I could go buy this smart cable thing from Circuit City and go that way. By chance do you have an estimate on what the smart cable might cost? Other then that I think I am set if that is everything.

Heres how it works
1. Buy the harness (metra) from Wal-Mart.
2. Plug that into the wire that came out of your facory radio for the install car.
3. The only thing left to do next is get the red but connectors (I love them/also at Wal-Mart) and connect the harness to your radio! I usually do this first.
4. Remember the harness is to save you from cutting the wires in your car (You may want to put the factory radio back in one day) not the wires for your radio!
5. Also if there was an after market radio installed in it before and they hard wired it in the harness to me is useless. Then you must wire yours in that way.

Hope this helps

vampiro wrote:

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SO the harness that I got from my Lebaron is a specially made one with a connecter into my cd player. Then from what I am understanding I would cut the one end of my cd players harness and splice it to the walmart harness. Or I could go buy this smart cable thing from Circuit City and go that way. By chance do you have an estimate on what the smart cable might cost? Other then that I think I am set if that is everything.

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Oh yea toss the old Labaron harness.