87 el camino.Bought a DEH-1300mp Pioneer cd deck hooked everything up did't work. notice when I tried to run the ground directly to the battery the interior lights that did't work magically turned on, possibly bad grounding? thoughts suggestions. greatly appreciated.

Welcome to the site. Where are you connecting your two power sources? If you are taping into the factory radio harness, you can use the yellow wire for your switched source and the black for ground. Don't use the gray wire, it is for illumination in the factory radio, most aftermarket have no such connection. For the constant power source you could tap into the cig lighter wiring, orange I think.

i've connected the orange wire to the decks constant, an the factory red wire to the accessory. hooked up the ground an antenna nothing, tried hooking up the antenna an running the ground straight to the battery nothing... thinking maybe the deck is just faulty not sure. or the wiring in the car is jacked.

Did you check the fuses? You would need to check the radio fuse and I believe the courtesy fuse where the orange wire for the cigarette lighter comes from.

If you connected the ground from the stereo directly to the battery and all the interior lights came on, it sounds like you have something mis-wired and and the ground is backfeeding and making connections. Check the stereo wiring to make sure the original ground isn't connected somewhere it shouldn't be. Then, check the ground connection underneath the dash where it bolts in on the drivers side. Tighten up that connection and I bet your interior lights will work.

Did you try the SRC button to see if it is powered off?Is there a fuse in the back of the unit ,if so have you checked it?