Common ground stereo adapter? How does this work?

[pro-five-oh]

Okay I did a search and I'm even more confused...

I am putting a Kenwood CD player in the stock Premium sound system of a 1986 MGM (early build, has the 1985 two knob stereo and wiring harness) and realized that I have no sound because of Ford's common ground system. I heard that the Scosche FAI-3A or PAC OEM-II adapters can be added to get the speakers working, is this right?

And does anyone have instructions to make that happen?

I'm kinda confused, plus I don't wanna buy an adapter only to find out it doesn't work.

[tjc78]

I've used a common ground adaptor and had no problems making it work. What I am not sure of is, if your analog radio has the amp in the trunk (I think it may) you may have some trouble getting it to work without bypassing the amp.

In the end, for the best possible sound, I would run new wires to the speakers. The common ground adaptor works, but the sound will not be as clean. I had a slight alternator whine with mine in my 79 Town Coupe.

[pro-five-oh]

Just bought one on eBay...sure hope it works! Fingers crossed...

[marquisman]

i would run new wires for the speakers. its not hard to do and the sound will be much better

[zoomie]

best option is to hardwire everything.

[p71towny]

I ditched my premium cause I couldn't get it to work, but I had the old pull switch under the dash. Sucked too cause it was a bad ass system. The amp would turn on and off if I tapped the ground wire on the dash frame.

[gadget73]

I actually recycled the wiring feeding the front speakers. Not sure what your car has, but mine had 2 pairs of wires from the trunk forward to the dash and door locations, 2 wires per side as you might expect. Since I have the in-car speakers fed from an amp, I was able to just tie the outputs from the amp into the factory wiring going forward and have my front speakers work without dragging a bunch of extra wiring through the car. I do have RCA cables running from the head unit though, so its still a bunch of extra non-stock wiring but its as minimal as I can make it.