97 Camaro radio probs

I am working on a 97 Chevy Camaro. It has no bose system and has a regular stereo harness behind the factory radio. It has the 6 speaker system but I cannot "pop" any of the speakers in the car with the adapter harness and a battery, and I wired the cd player directly to the harness and there is no sound coming out, but if you plug the factory radio back in, all speakers play and fade and balance as normal. If you hook up just 1 negative polarity speaker wire from the aftermarket radio to the right rear positive speaker wire, the speaker will play??!?!?! Is the car possessed or am I missing something here?? There is no connection on the factory harness where the blue turn on wire would be. Thanks for any and all help.

I have found a factory amp behind the right rear panel. How do I bypass this? Does anyone have the color codes? I am adding a 4 channel rockford amp to power the interior speakers! Thanks again!!
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Metra makes an amp bypass cable assy for these vehicles..... part # is 70-2038

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Kevin Gerry
Certified Electronics Technician
MECP First Class Installer

Owner/Installer
Classic Car Audio
since 1979

I ran into the same problem with my 2000 camaro. I found that when i hooked up just the front speakers, i got nothing. It was weird. I finally figured out that YOU HAVE TO HOOK UP FRONT AND REAR for everything to work, even though i don't even have any speakers in the rear. For some reason, you have to have a signal going to all four channels for the factory amp to kick on.

Thanks very much for replying.... I found that there were no rear speakers (the ones at the back seat) someone had removed them. I just cut the harness and popped the speakers until I found them all.... and it was a very tedious experience.... however... if anyone needs the info... I have it now!! lol. Definately use the bypass harness!! Much faster.... (wish I would have had one!!) Thanks again!!
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