i am sure this has been covered but will the 2000-2003 cd am fm system fit a 1997 cassette system wiring and harness setup as just a plug in and play? thanks.

 

The wiring harnesses are different.

Mounting is different as well I think.

 

I found somethin for ya...as far as the harness goes.

Get one of these...1997 From Factory Wiring Harness plug it into the 1997 factory wiring harness

and connect the wires to this...2000-2003 Into Stereo Wiring Harness
and plug it into the back of the radio

VOILA!!!! you've got yourself a nice wiring harness swap without having to cut the factory wiring.

 

wow i'm impressed, your on top of things. i will try this and let you know. also, do the newer cd ford units work with the cd changer i have in my truck. should be able to wire up using this harness don't you think. thanks

 

The CD CHanger wiring won't be a part of the wiring bundle that's in that harness. There will be a separate plug in the back of the head unit. I can't offer any info on the CD CHanger stuff... I've never messed with the factory CD Changer.

 

Has anyone other than booger tried this? I did and found it to be an easy hookup, but the buttons don't light up. I have 5 wires hooked up on one part of the new harness and 8 wires on the other... same as stock. All connections are soldered and covered with shrink tube.

I was going to e-mail booger directly, but that option doesn't seem to be available.

 

The pinning on schosche, metra, jensen speaker harnesses have been wrong, at batches at a time. Not frequently but it does happen almost 5% of the time if you include speaker harnesses.

Ghoti, you should be able to resolve your "lights" issue. Both harnesses (orange wires) dimmer and illumination can easily be mixed up. Check those, it may even mean swapping them. It won't hurt the deck side if you ground or hook it to 12+ to test dimm/illumination, just don't do it on the truck side, you'll blow fuses or worse...

Also check to see that there is a corresponding wire in the truck for those colors, sometimes there are not any connections and you need to repin the plug correctly...

 

When I was putting the two parts of the harness together I went exactly color to color.... i.e. orange to orange... Should have been orange to orange with white stripe. Found a link here on the forum to installdr.com . The link took me to a diagram of what/where all of the wires are. From there I was able to see what I should have done.
There are so many people here posting helpful information. I've been able to fix several things from what I have found here.
Thanks to all.