Killer $500 stereo install and writeup

[firemanory]

While I am in here.....

Decided to do the dash swap that has been sitting in my attic for almost 2 years...


Wires scare me. Lots of counseling with Jedi Master Luke. He squared me away and told me to be one with the wires.



I have a non-premium stereo with fader switch, so connections were a little different than the sticky thread. Speaker connections at the head unit ended up being as simple as the Yellow Black with Yellow Red and Blue Black and Blue Red. Magical.

[mother_russia]

This is an alright deal... Not the "killer" deal though..

[firemanory]

Nicely wrapped....


Love the creative use of irrigation piping!


With Sub in it. I ended up using some old speaker wire from the 90's. Super heavy duty all copper stuff.


Next came running the wires. Ran from the head unit back, figuring I could hide wires easier in the trunk. Ran 3 RCA cables and sub-remote controller, even though I only used two. Luke said for future use, so I did as the godfather told me to. Ran the wires in all the stock wire holder locations. Managed to not break a single one, although some were really tight to get them to fit. For some reason I didn't run a sub-remote turn on wire because I thought the sub remote controller performed that function. I am a newbie at this so I learned the hard way on a lot of this. Luckily I had not put all the trim pieces back as I told myself I wouldn't do that until the car was done. I then performed the rear wire connections to extend the front wires and to connect the rears to the sub. It all wrapped up nicely with the RCA's to the rear and into the trunk.

[firemanory]

So I got a hair up my butt to get a functioning stereo in my ride after reading the “Ultimate $500 stereo thread” and hearing about the countless masses who have proclaimed this the best thing since sliced bread. I had a window of time open in my world and decided to take the plunge. I bought everything in the writeup except the head unit, I got the next Pioneer Model up, the DEH-64BT. It has a Bluetooth option to connect to your phone to stream music and to make phone calls with the optional mic. Here is a picture of the setup when it all arrived within a day of each other.


Now time for the trunk tar removal. I went with the low tech, low cost, longer time method of using the painter halogen lights facing down to heat up the trunk tar and then peel away.


There are two layers of trunk tar. The top most layer heats up quick and peels away real easy. Its the 2nd layer that can be a bitch, but no real match for the double light madness. My tools of choice ended up being a hammer, chisel, and putty knife. Let the light set for 10 minutes while I did some yard work and then came in and took out as much as I could while it was still hot. Kept doing the process until it all came out. Took about an hour and a half when it was all said and done. Mine ended up weighing 48.2 lbs with a small bit taken out for my rear sway bar reinforcement plates and bolts.




Back to the Lukebox. Here is a pic of the super stout shipping box it came in. Love the custom wrap job.