Car Stereos: car sterio sound/amp issue, jeep grand cherokee, grand cherokees

Question
I have a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee that I am installing a Kenwood KDC-X693 Deck in. this Jeep has the stock Infinity Amp/speakers in it. I have installed the wires for the deck with wiring harness wire for wire. I have sound for the Tuner (scratchy)... but not for the Ipod or CD function. I took the Black wire from the deck to Body ground which I toned out to the negative terminal on the battery true.. The extra wires not hooked up on the wiring harness is the (orange) Illumination dash light wire.... The extra wires from the old deck is one (black) wire with a female quick connect.. and a double connector with wires (white/black)(purple/black)

Answer
Hi Robert,

The wiring harness should have a blue wire in it.  I'm sure you connected this to the blue wire coming from the Kenwood plug, but this is incorrect: the blue wire activates the Infinity amplifier, so it needs to connect to the Kenwood deck's blue/white wire instead.  This will turn your amplifier on whenever the deck is powered up, instead of just when you select the tuner function.

I'm guessing the scratchy sound is the result of bad stock speakers; I haven't seen too many of these older Grand Cherokees that didn't need the speakers replaced.

The illumination wire in the harness shouldn't be needed, but be sure to tape it up so it can't cause a short.  The black wire with the quick disconnect on the end is the factory ground wire.  The 2-pin plug is a factory data wire connection, and should be left strictly alone.

Hope this helps!

Brian