I was talking to my friend the other day at work and he mentioned that his stereo in his car hasn't worked since he got it. I've installed a few stereos so I told him i'd check it out after work. First off, I noticed the big tangle of wires with plenty of sloppy electrical tape and wire nuts, and went straight for power wires. Right away I noticed the yellow wire was disconnected, problem solved easy enough, right? Wrong. I reconnected it, and nothing. I figured i'd redo the who wiring harness and if that doesn't fix it, the deck is probably blown.
I redid the harness and tried plugging it in today... no luck. So i decided to test the wires to see if it actually was the HU (since i didn't want him to buy a new one just to learn it wasn't that) and i get power from the red, nothing from the yellow still. Then i notice that all the wires before the stock harness connector have electrical tape on them (meaning they were cut.) So i test before the harness, and still nothing. So it seems like it's not getting any power somewhere else down the line or something.

Does anyone know of anything else that could be the problem or any other kind of trouble shooting that could be done?

car is a cavalier z24 btw

Cliffs:
Friend's stereo doesn't work.
Checked it out, yellow wire disconnected.
Reconnect yellow wire, still nothing.
Test wires, red is good (so is ground), yellow is not.
No power to yellow wire before wiring harness.
What do i do now?

 

check the fuse lol....try just some random deck laying around....how did you test the ground? continuity?

 

well the yellow wire has an inline fuse, but that's fine, the problem is before that. where u talking about a different fuse?
I would have tried another deck, but i didn't have any others.
The ground is good since that's what I used to ground the red power wire when i tested it (and it worked)
thanks for the quick response tho

 

so youre sayig you tested for voltage at the red wire and used yellow as ground? be a little more specific please...you did say power at red "or voltage"...then nothing from yellow...so assuming yellow is your ground you wouldnt get anything....

also...isnt there a fuse dubbed radio or something of the sort anywhere?

 

To test the wires, i just used a wire tester that lights up when there's power.
I tested the red wire (grounded to the black) and the tester lit up,
i then tested the yellow wire, (grounded to black) and the tester did not light up. The yellow wire has an inline fuse which is not blown. Testing of the yellow wire was done before the harness as well and i got nothing.

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Yeah simple find out where that wire is coming from....work backwards at every test point you can see with the wire until you A either find an open in the wire, or B find a fuse that is blown (open as well)

 

Check the fuse in the actual fuse panel of the vehicle, Not the radio.

 

^^ What he said. There are also fuses under the hood.