sorry but i am not talking about a mustang, i am dealing with a 2001 cougar and its head unit. I took the stock one out but am having trouble matching wires and getting the power to the unit. Me and a friend were working and my buddy cut the wires from the connector thinking that we have to reconnect them all accordingly, hopefully this is still ok? and no i just need to know what the wires mean to help get the power to the unit. Such as the red wire which says to connect it to the electric terminal controlled by the ignition swith, and i dont know what the electric terminal controlled by the ignition swith is. As well as the yellow wire which says to connect to the terminal that is always suppled with power regardless of ignition switch postion. I also dont know what that wire is. So if someone can Please help me to understand this id appreciate it.

 

Some factory wires have what they are, printed on them, in small letters..

If worse comes to worse, reconnect the connector to the wires..

 

reconnect the connector huh. dont the wires have to go into certain holes of the connector though?... and than what do i do once they were connect if i was to go that route?

 

You said "cut the wires" from the connector, not pulled them out of the connector. If they were cut, the wire colors didn't change, just reconnect them.

If he pulled them out, better find a wiring diagram, or get a Haynes book.

 

no because we pulled the stock unit out and unplug the clip which had all the wires in it. he cut all of them. and now we are trying to install the new head unit which says to connect the yellow wire to the terminal always supplied with power regardless of igniton position, and the red with says to the electrical terminal controlled by the ignition switch, and the organge/white wire to the lightingswitch terminal.and i dont know what either of them are... other than those three the other wires are connected color wise for the most part. but i need to figure out what those 3 are so i can get power to the unit..

 

They should be color cordinated..
Yellow wire should always have power going to it, should be a solid yellow wire.
Red wire is for ignition, so when you flip it the igition to "on" or "app" your unit turns on, should be a solid red wire.
Orange/White is for your dimmer switch.

Most of the time, these should be the same..

 

before we can start this we need to know if that was a premium system that was in the car. Was the 2 hrns's on the back of the radio the same size? Hopefully they were....

We can't just give you the colors and tell you hook the yellow wire up the pink/red since to be honest the wire colores were rarely the same in those years. When a car would come in that had the factory hrns cut off I NEVER looked for the factory color code but if I did I would have had to test each wire before connecting it.

Here is a good article written by a buddy on another site telling what you would need to do to wire this.

http://www.clubknowledge.com/Car_Audio_FAQ/?t36

I have to be honest and tell you that with the type of questions you are asking you might want to either consider a local shop, or at the very least finding the friend that you think knows the most about stereos.

There are three basic power wires and a couple of others. The yellow wire is the +12v constant. This means a wire that ALWAYS has +12v on it(similar to your cigarette lighter) The red wire will need to go to a wire that will have +12v on it when you have the key(ignition) on. You did not ask about the ground so I assume you know where it goes(i have been burned on that assumption before!). The orange wire is the dimmer wire. This will go to a wire that has +6-12v on it when the lights are on, this wire allows you to dim the lights on the radio. All of these wires need to be found with a voltmeter or testlight. If you do not know how to use these then again you need to know your limits and do what is with in those limits.

 

1. search web for car specific radio wiring. (i have seen several just from general wiring searches) OR
2. go to auto partsstore and get a cheap 12v test light and test the wires. test all with key turned off...1 will be hot(12V) mark that for the yellow wire. Turn the key on and test the rest. 1 will have 12V with only key on. that is the HU main power. One will be ground, and the rest are speakers.

 

i think i get it... i got the speakers in.. most of them anyway.. the problem comes when i have the orange/white, the red, and a green/black one running from the unit.. but than from the car bundle its red/white, red/gray, orange/black, green/white, blue/black, and 4 green/black... But get a test light to find out whats what i guess is what ill do... i put the pioneer premier 780 into a 02 stang before no problem at all, so figured id be able to do the premier 980 into a cougar, but not as simple..

 

would have been cake if you had not cut, sorry if yer buddy had not cut the hrns.