To answer some of the questions, all my stuff is rewired, not using existing Jeep radio harness. it was rewired with the last radio that was installed (by me and worked fine). the ground wire comes out of the new radio harness, it is soldered and goes to the same point my last radio ground. However, the Radio Chassis does Not have a groud, will trying to put that in this weekend.
There is no inline noise filer on the power wire. My understanding was modern HUs have that inside the guts.
For the small fuse panel above the clutch, the hot wire that i shorted had no fuse link in it. it had a tab and went into a spot called "clock". Since that time, that is no longer constant 12V hot. I have tried to following wiring diagrams to trace where that CLOCK goes (online pics), in order to see if I blew a fuse in the Power Distribution Block under the hood. I havent pulled ALL the fuses in there, they are kinda big and not sure how to do it (sad i know). Lighter still works so do headlights and all that. from what i can see, the big fuse links do not LOOK blown, but hard to see full detail. any idea what fuse to look for in the block? GOTTA be a fuse on that CLOCK SOMEWHERE RIGHT? that fuse is a secondary issue i just wanna clear up.
will be working on ground this weekend.