I've got a '98 LS 4DR and last night I installed a new sony CD deck into it. I took off the dash cover piece and unhooked all the clips and the deck installation seemed to go fine. when I was finished i found a black based clip with a red attachment around the same area as the other clips for the rear hatch and wipers connected but no place to connect this other clip... the deck worked fine when i tested it but when I went to take the car out last night i started it up and it almost seemed like it shorted for a second but then continued to start up just fine. the car was running but the dash light for the spedometer and RPM didn't light up. this morning I planned on trying to fix the problem and when i went out to put the car in the garage from the freezing cold weather and rain the car wouldn't start and made a clicking noise as if the battery was dead. I've attempted to jump the car and use a battery charger with a start mode on it at i still had no success in starting the vehicle. at this point i've got no clue whether it was something that i accidentally messed up or if by coincidence the fuse for the dash went out and the battery finally crapped out on me. please help with any suggestions or ideas!

 

The red circled one is the clip that i can't figure out, can someone at least tell me where it is supposed to connect to?

[IMG]local://upfiles/12740/569A1E5D872A4097B558F7B40D2ED6A3.jpg[/IMG]

 

Too bad it is not a 96 cuz I could probably answer this question! What is on the bezel right there on a 98? On my 96 there isn't anything right there. The blue circle would be the 4x4 on mine. You sure it isn't something that is suppose to be hooked up for the cd player? Almost seems like to me it just got around in the dash and when you noticed it it was on that side of the dash frame.

Don't get me wrong, I could be TOTALLY off, but just throwning that out there

 

The upper ones are for my 4x4 switch there's two of them, and the lower blue circled one connects to the rear hatch and rear wiper hook up. I though it could possibly be a connection for something that may have never been there too, and I've looked to see if it was moved from another location but it seems improbable that it could shift that far because of how confined it is to that specific area. Thanks for the help though.

 

So after sitting in the cold for a while I looked again and there actually was an additional clip that went to the factory stereo, I'm not exactly sure what it was for though. When i turn the key the dash fails to light up and the voltage gauge is on 9, but with the battery charger/starter hooked up the dash stays unlit as the voltage meter raises up to the 12.5 marker and then it drops as the dash lights kick in and then stays around 11 volts. at this point it still isn't getting enough power to start the vehicle so i'm thinking that the battery is just shot. Is there any way i could have fried the battery while installing this stereo?

 

I kinda hope your Battery was disconnected whilst you installed the stereo in question right?

 

Yeah of course it was. After taking the battery out of the car and letting it charge for a while i reconnected everything and it all worked perfectly and the car started, Ive got no idea why i was having all of those other problems but somehow the battery was drained. thanks for the help though.