Originally Posted by drpdmazda

i dont fault you at all for trying. just sometimes a shortcut take a whole lot longer than just doing it correctly from the jump. let me know what happens when you get more time to mess with it, and hopefully you get some good results.
I always encourage people to try it themselves IF they are certain of what they are jumping into. i just had to fix an 05 camry for a guy because his friend who used to be an installer, chopped off his airbag light harness instead of his radio harness, and then went ahead and chopped off the radio harness for good measure. lots of quality time re soldering a new harness in to that car.

Originally Posted by drpdmazda

is the original system the jbl amplified system? if it is, find the amp which should be a silver metal box right behind the radio area, held in with 2-3 gold 10mm bolts. remove the amp, and on the bottom side there will be a standard toyota stereo wiring harness.

if this is the case, go to your local audio shop and buy a standard toyota wiring harness for non jbl systems. if its a metra brand it will be a 70-1761 you can then wire the radio up correctly and that will hopefully eliminate the issues you are having. if it was a jbl system, and you cut the harness and hard wired straight to it, that will be the cause of most if not all of your problems.

hope that all makes sense