Am I screwed?

[RalliArt3kGT]

Ok, so I drive a 96 Mercury Villager (yeah I know ) and it came with a factory 6 disc changer along with the standard Ford cassette deck. Well the CD player tends to scratch CD's and I've got a couple decks laying around so I got the parts to put one in from a friend that works at Best Buy in Car-Fi. So I pulled it out last night to discover that the gray connecter for the wiring harness matched up, but the black was a smaller square connector rather than the long rectangular one that I got. So my question is, does this mean I have a "premium" sound package that doesn't allow me to hook up an aftermarket deck without rewiring the system, or do I just have to buy a different wiring harness? Help is very much appreciated.

[pre98zetec]

find the factory amp and unplug the harness leading to the speakers and plug in the new harness there. Don't go through factory amps, they're junk.

[RalliArt3kGT]

Do you have any idea where the factory amp would be? Also, does it look like just a black box or is it shaped like an aftermarket amp? I took a quick look last night and I didn't find anything that looked like an amo in the obvious places. Is this my only solution? Thanks for the help.

[PaulD]

it should be just a discrete black box ..... factory stuff doesn't need any bling. You really do need to bypass it to use a high powered aftermarket deck or seperate amplifier.

[RalliArt3kGT]

I looked all around behind the center console in the dash today where all the other computers and stuff are and didn't find anything that appeared to be connected to the radio or speakers, so am I looking in the wrong place? I can't really imagine where else in the vehicle it would be, any suggestions as to finding it?

[RalliArt3kGT]

Ok, I found the factory amp in the cargo area in the back of the van, so to hook up my deck I would have to unplug the harness from the amp, plug in this harness http://www.scosche.com/scosche/connectors/FD12.asp and run those wires back to the front, and then wire those into to harness that plugs into the back of the aftermarket deck. Is that correct? I noticed that in the picture the wires arent color-coded, would it be difficult for someone like me with very little car audio experience to wire up? If it seems to be something you guys might think is difficult, I may just have to go the walkman through the tape deck route since I lost my iPod (thats the main reason this whole cluster of a project started)

[PaulD]

In this case, you may be better off just running new spearker wires from an aftermarket cd player

[Integra4200]

i just got done doing that it can be a pain in the ass but its worth it in the end good luck if u decide to do that. make sure you leave your self half of a saturday its not something that u can rush threw.