Crazy car stereo issue now...

[tachikoma]

I'm trying to install a kenwood cd player. I've been fairly successful in the past with installing decks but this is giving me some issues.

Everything is connected correctly, yet when I connect the ground (solid black) to the chassis (or a ground area), all it does is erase my clock in the dash...? wtf?

And the stereo doesn't power on at all, either way. I installed a deck into my wifes s13 no problem. I even double checked how I did it (was a while ago) and everything is almost wired exactly as my s14, yet this kenwood refuses to power on and I have that strange ground issue...

I don't have an SE, it's a base model, so no amp (that I know of) so nothing needs to be bypassed for the speakers. As far as I can tell it should've been a 10 minute install, which has turned into several hours of frustration.

I've researched all over, including http://www.installdr.com/ and various other sites, but nothing really mentions this issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.