Reversing a hackjob - RMT 200 DIY - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

[CurrusDei]

Someone just bought the old POS head unit on eBay for $16. The Internet is an amazing thing. That should cover a nice set of valve stem caps....maybe

[CurrusDei]

Reversing a hackjob - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

Haven't opened it yet. Lots of bigger ticket items to do before I get to LED matching. About a week after I installed it my dash swap started. The car looks like this right now, doing an r134a upgrade simultaneous with the dash swap.

[guibo09]

Yeh definitely not for the guys wanting a full system. I will say though that even the original radio does not 100% match the plastic texture OR sit flush, so IMO this looks better than stock.


Frankly in an M3 all I'll want to listen to is that S14, so if it looks good and functions, I'm happy 👍

Flushness and texture of original radio in my car was spot on. But currently just running with block off plate and no music besides engine sounds.

I have to admit, your install is beautifully flush and you get huge props for that.

Did you open the radio at all to see what type of illumination it uses?

[CurrusDei]

Reversing a hackjob - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

Yeh definitely not for the guys wanting a full system. I will say though that even the original radio does not 100% match the plastic texture OR sit flush, so IMO this looks better than stock.


Frankly in an M3 all I'll want to listen to is that S14, so if it looks good and functions, I'm happy 👍

[guibo09]

Cool thanks for the info.

This radio was almost the holy grail. Just missing amber lighting, sub pre-outs, and if I'm really picky, a better black texture match.

[CurrusDei]

Reversing a hackjob - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

Correct. It's a VW/Audi OEM radio, and they have red dash lights, or blue depending. But honestly it's very close in person. I'd rather have a sleek looking radio with red lights than a chunky spaceship looking aftermarket radio with amber.

Who knows, maybe I'll get brave/stupid and try an amber swap someday.

[guibo09]

This radio lights up red right? Not bmw amber?

[BlackSpeed66]

Looks nice man! Looks like mine! :D

[CurrusDei]

Thanks Brad! Credit where due though I'm not the first to do this and couldn't have done it without the input I got from Luke, Geno and others.

The radio is great, I might be crazy but I think it sounds better than my E90. That might be the sweat investment skewing my perceptions though.

[bradnic]

I'd have to say this is the best effort I've seen yet to update an OEM radio setup with something looking factory. Sweet job on the ABS glue and flush mount!

[accident]

Damn, that looks awesomely OEM. Good job man

[CurrusDei]

Reversing a hackjob - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

It lives. The install is finished. And when I say finished I mean as far as it's going before my new dash arrives tomorrow. Still, here are some crappy iPhone pics of the first fit.

















And the fabrication of the mounting bezel.



Cut off the old one





Make sure to get the metra pack with several mounts in it. The smallest one was too thin. I cut down the slightly larger one to fit perfectly











Test fit, trim, test fit, trim. KEY POINT here. I found that once you cut off the factory bezel, mounting the new one so that the front edge of the new one presses up against where the rear edge of the original one was (there is still a slight lip) is perfect placement.



















Measure lip - 7mm







Measure head unit - 7mm (I obviously measured beforehand as well)







The clips on the back need to be snug, as you can see here, there's a gap.







Stack the smaller bezel on back of the main bezel, trim till it clicks and has a tight fit







Now for glue. In my research, the best glue for ABS is... ABS. I used the original bezel that I cut off the car...



Chopped it to pieces





Melted with acetone







And use as glue. I love that the glue for the new bezel IS the old bezel. That's some Lion King circle of life stuff right there

















First test fit, dead on.















I'll consolidate all this into an easy DIY later, thanks to Luke, Geno, and everyone else who helped!!



Here's the result of your input!

[CurrusDei]

Alright gents, the wiring is done.

I got the pins out, you need to insert something small on the side of the pin like so. NOTE: i had already pulled the pins here so don't pull the pin I have the key in, this is for demonstration ONLY.



You are trying to depress two metal tabs on the side of the pin itself (that stick out onto catches in the plastic housing) back into the pin housing. See below for these pins - think wings on an airplane. The tabs you need to push back into the pin housing are the small ones pointing down in the picture below.



My first foray into soldering...

I opened up the pin housing of the red cable to provide better room to solder



To power the safety terminal I used the blue wire from the Metra harness. Stripped it to expose the bare wire, taped it on top of the red wire to hold its position.



Then after practice on scrap pieces of wire (which my PO graciously gave me much of) I went for the solder (sorry for the crappy pics)





Then re-close the red pin housing



And fire it up (with new radio adapter installed as well)



And do some heat shrinking

Amp bypass wires:


Dash wires behind head (you can see the power wire still isn't heat shrunk - gives an idea of how much they shrink down)



Next up! TESA TAPE AND DASH INTEGRATION.


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[BlackSpeed66]

Hey, good to see you got it working. Sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to your PM.... work has been stupid lately.

For the jumper on the power harness, I was able use a small jewelers screwdriver to push the tab out of the way - the connector pin will slide out from the back of the plastic connector block. The tab as to be pushed down from the "face" of the connector and if I remember, it is on the same "side" as the crimped wire on the back. Just don't get too rough with it - the metal is kind of cheap on the connectors and you can break the tab off if you pull too hard. I wound up soldering the jumper wire on to the connector pins.

[CurrusDei]

Reversing a hackjob - the stereo portion of my E30 M3 restoration

I'm clear on that, my question was the actual jump wire installation process. I tried to remove the pins from the harness last night with some small screw drivers but it wasn't having it. Going to check radio shack for some pin removers. Is there a special wire end you put on the blue wire to make the connection to red or are you just stripping off some red insulation and twisting on the blue wire or something else?

However, the big news today is...

THE STEREO IS WORKING!

Amp bypass was very easy. My wire colors were a bit different as you can see below. My final writeup will have a color chart.



I just jammed some wire into the pins to make a temporary jump (looking to improve on this)


And to kick it off, Led Zeppelin - Rock and Roll. I'm betting it's been a long time been a long time been a long lonely lonely loney lonely lonely time since these speakers had any life whatsoever. Much less from a Bluetooth streaming iPhone




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