Cruise Control Question

[Cjamerson1212]

Can anyone explain the behavior of a cruise control that is not properly grounded?

My Car: 1998 Boxster 2.5L

The CC light comes on when I start the car, then goes out after a few seconds.
The CC light comes on when I press in the CC button on the stalk.
The CC light stays on when I try to activate CC. (pushing stalk forward)
The CC light momentarily goes out when I reset CC (pull stalk backwards)
THEN after attempting to activate CC a bunch of times the CC light will go out and not come back on until I restart the car. Anyone know what this means?

Here is my particular run down of events:
- Bought the car in June, and could not get the cruise control to work.
- A few weeks later.. It randomly worked!
- Found water under drivers seat.. pulled all carpet out and hopefully fixed leak.
- Replaced headlights, side markers, brake lights, and 3rd brake light with LED's.
- Replaced both the brake and clutch switches. While I was under the dash I found a random loose black wire that was attached to the front wall next to where the steering column exits the cabin. The other end of the 8-10 inch wire was corroded and didn't look like it was connected to anything. I ended up ripping it out.
- I installed a load resistor on the left tail light; still no CC.
- I moved the load resistor to the 3rd Brake light wire... Still no CC.

Now I'm kinda wondering if the random black wire I found could have been a poorly installed ground for the cruise control??
I'm in the process of upgrading to a double din stereo and have already removed the instrument cluster to run the microphone/ GPS lines how I want. I'm going to go ahead and remove the steering wheel and see what I see.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.