Key to good wiring is a fire extinguisher

Yesterday I finally managed to get the new stereo in the Golf. It may not have the top of the range speakers, but it sounded pretty good to me so job done.

The end discovery was that VW don't use the black wire as a ground, they use brown. Once everything grounded through brown, it all worked perfectly.

So gee'd up with my success with the Golf, I decided to quickly sort the Chevy's stereo.

It's very odd to go from the 25 year old Golf that is immaculate, with a perfect wiring loom, to the 20 year old Chevy that has a wiring loom that is butchered and largely burned out. Not to mention a butchered dashboard.

The stereo has been working but it's had no memory, so it means starting the car, leaning over to turn the stereo on and press 3, and then retuning to my favourite country station. I could switch allegience to another station that happens to be on 3 as default, but I'm not going to. I needed a solution for having a stereo that worked each time I turned it on, and would already be tuned to 94.9FM.

The problem with the burned out loom is that I cannot find the permanent live from the battery (to hold the stereo's memory). However, what should be the permanent live is in fact an ignition live (eg it's live when you flick the ignition to on). And what should be the permanent live just doesn't work.

So to get a permanent live I need to find a permanent circuit. Interestingly the fusebox is only a few feet away. So if i run a cable from that to the stereo - bingo - permanent live.

The only cable I had was 14 gauge house wiring cable. But heck, it'll still transmit the required electrons to do the job. In fact, technically it's one of the safest cables in the vehicle. Now.

Then I need to find a fuse that has permenant live - STOP lights are always live! So shoved the cable in that, wired the other end to the stereo - and BINGO - stereo works perfectly.

Plus, if the stereo ever goes out - I'll know I have no stop/brake lights.