I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial, Doing anything my radio advised

I love my iPod. I'm on my 2nd one, and being able to have my entire music library in the palm of my hand is just amazing. And the best part is being able to carry that into my car instead of carrying 150 cds. However, in order for me to play the iPod on my car stereo, I've always resorted to radio transmitters that broadcast on FM frequencies. Unfortunately these transmitters broadcast on a very weak signal (FFA regulations, I'm sure), and they more often than not played with static in the background, or worse. (And by worse, sometimes I would end up at a light and all of a sudden I would get nothing but static, or even some other music. It was almost always the person in the car next to me who either had a much stronger transmitter, or mine just royally sucked.)

I finally got sick of the static, and decided to upgrade my car receiver to a newer model (the factory installed model has been in the Civic since I bought it 4 years ago), one with direct connect iPod capability. I did some research online (which means I went to crutchfield.com and found the cheapest one), and it arrived at home last week. This was going to be an interesting project for me, since I have never even attempted to replace a radio, speaker, or anything that is housed in the car. I had no idea how to get the radio out (did I need to take the entire dash out? did I have to remove the engine?), or what was required installing the new one. Thankfully a couple of friends mentioned that a) Crutchfield is great with their instructions, and b) it's really not that hard. So last Saturday I jumped in and tried my luck.

Right off the bat I violated the first rule of Doing a Project with Doug: Never start the project later than Noon. In fact, first light is usually the better option, considering how I never fail to find out half-way through any project I'm trying to perform that either a) I don't have the tools necessary to get the project done, which requires multiple trips to Home Depot, b) I don't have the skills to get the project done (also known as not having a clue how to hold a wrench), or c) both. Due to a trip to the Franklin Park zoo Saturday morning, I started my project at 3:00 pm. I was told by a source that it shouldn't take me "more than an hour or so". So I figured, with 4 hours of good daylight left, I should be fine.

Step 1 of the process, shown above, was relatively easy, but a little annoying. In order to take out the radio/climate unit, I had to take the trim around the automatic shifter. While I didn't have the recommended "shiv" (at least that's what it looked like in the pictures), I was able to get the trim off with a flat head screwdriver, and I amazed myself that I didn't crack the plastic once.

The next step wasn't so easy. This trim below was needed to be removed so you could unscrew two screws that were up underneath the radio/climate unit. The instructions recommended a ratchet and socket to reach these, which I don't have. (It's just one of those things I've never gotten around to buying.) I was hoping I could get to them with a screwdriver, but not only were the screws in a completely asinine location that wouldn't allow a regular screwdriver to really get to them, they were also tighter than a hotel bed sheet. So around 3:30, I was off to Home Depot to buy a socket/ratchet set. This wasn't totally unexpected, as the instructions also said I would need "crimp caps" for the wiring. I didn't understand that completely either, but figured I would once I got back there. So off to Home Depot I go.

At the store I go to the electronics area first, and look for "crimp caps". I can't find anything that is called that, but I do find some other end/connector thingies (my technical term for them) that looked like the pictures in the instructions. I called a guy over, and sure enough he said those were them, but said that screw/cap ends were much easier. Unfortunately the instructions that Crutchfield sent only mentioned two ways to connect the wires: crimp caps or soldering. And since I don't own a soldering gun, crimp caps it was. With those in hand, I went to the tool area to look for socket wrenches. I just assumed all socket wrenches were the same, so I grabbed a ratchet, and grabbed a set of 10 sockets that included the 8mm size I knew I needed. I went, checked out, and headed home.

As soon as I got home and opened the sockets, I knew I had made a critical error. (The first of many.) I hadn't bought sockets -- I had bought socket hex bolts. The best way to describe the difference is that a socket goes around the outside of a bolt/screw, while the hex bolt is a solid hex that I guess goes into hex bolts. Either way, I knew I didn't have the right tools. (But I do need to defend myself for one second. The sockets/hex bolts were all covered on the end, so I couldn't possibly see whether they were sockets or hex bolts by looking at them. Although I could have read the package that said "HEX BOLTS", but I thought that was just another name for a socket. Like maybe they call it that in Quebec or something.)

So back to Home Depot again. (As someone once said to me about weekend projects, "why go to Home Depot once when you can go five times.") This time I read the packages a lot more carefully and noticed that yes, they did have actual sockets. however, I also noticed they were 1/4" drive, which meant NOTHING to me. Upon further examination, I noticed that there are 3 standard socket drives: 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2". This 8mm socket that I needed only came in 1/4" drive. Thankfully I called Sage to see what ratchet I had bought. Sure enough, it was a 3/8". So I had to buy another ratchet, and I also threw in some extenders just in case. I figured I would much rather buy the entire stock of ratchets and sockets than make another trip this afternoon.

Back home, I'm in business. The socket wrench works and I'm able to get the screws out. After some delicate prying around the radio/climate unit, I was able to extract the entire unit and unhook the 4 climate plugs, the receiver plug, and the antenna plug.

Here's the big empty with the unit out and unplugged.

As you can see, Sage really wanted to make sure this entire project got documented. After the unit came out, it was easy to slide out the old receiver. Now I just have to do is put the new one in and connect the wires. What could be hard about that?

Well, the fact that I don't know what I'm doing, of course. So they supplied a plug that obviously plugs into the receiver, with a bunch of wires coming out on the end (on the left, above). Then there was the plug still in the car that was blue and had a bunch of wires. I first thought that I needed to cut off that plug, then match up the wires with this black plug, and then connect them all. But not knowing for sure, I figured I'd call Crutchfield and ask. (They're supposed to have great customer service on products and install.) So I tried calling, but all I get is a busy signal. Not good. Time to call my back-up support, Graham in VA. He's no help, except to say, "keep trying Crutchfield". Actually, he did offer one very sage piece of advice, which was I probably didn't want to cut off the plug that's in the car, since if I had to reinstall the old receiver, I wouldn't have anything to plug it in to.

So it was on the phone to Crutchfield again, and while I finally got through, I was on hold for a good 15 minutes. (I guess a lot of weekend warriors were busy this day.) While on hold I noticed another plug with wires, this one blue, that was sent with the package. (See photo, the batch on the right.) Hey, this one is blue, the one in the car is blue. Coincidence? Obviously not. I tried plugging this newly found blue plug into the car plug, and voila! A perfect fit. So now all I have to do is connect the wires on the left to the wires on the right. I still waited for a Crutchfield consultant, as not all the wires matched up and I wanted to make sure what to do with the leftovers. (Tape them off and forget about them was basically the answer.)

So now I get started with the wire stripping, connecting, and crimping. Everything is going fine, except for these crimp caps that I'm using. After crimping them the wires really aren't staying in the cap. This is starting to piss me off, but then I remember what the guy at Home Depot said about using screw-ons. I seem to remember having some of those, so I head into the garage to dig through a bunch of unpacked boxes and I find a bunch of screw-on caps. I bring them back, and they work like a charm. While I have a bit of apprehension using screw-on caps when the instructions don't mention the option of using them, they definitely are holding in place, so I'm sticking with them. And I'll just hope they don't end up blowing up the car.

So I get all the wires connected correctly (I hope, anyway), and I plug in the wire cables into the car (above). As you can see, with all the wires and those screw-on caps, it begins to look like a complete jumble.

So now all I need to do is to hook the receiver into the car. The main wire bunch is all connected here, and and everything is ready to push back into the dashboard.

Ta-dah! I get all the climate controls re-attached, and I push back the whole unit into the dash. I get those annoying screws back into place, and hook back up the battery. (Disconnected when I began, to make sure there wouldn't be any sort of "incident".) I immediately plug in my iPod, and it works great! Great playback, and no static. In fact, I'm ec-static on how it's working. (Lame, I know.) So then I try the radio. Uh-oh...nothing but snow. I change channels, and still nothing. I hit the scan button, to get any station, and nothing comes back.

So now I'm starting to wonder what I did wrong. One of the wires in the instructions was listed as "power antenna". I asked the Crutchfield guy about that one, and he said since I don't have a power antenna that automatically goes up or down depending on if the radio is on, I didn't need to hook that one up. But maybe he was wrong? By this time it's after 7:00 pm, and I don't want to go through the entire process of unhooking the battery, unscrewing those annoying screws, and pulling out the unit again. This can wait until the next day.

So Sunday morning, and I'm ready to see what I did wrong, if anything. I go through the process of unhooking everything, and I pull out the unit. And immediately I see my problem: I plugged the antenna into the wrong slot! I have no idea what slot I put it in, but you'll see in the photo above in its correct place, at the bottom-left of the back panel. (In the 3rd photo above, you can barely see the antenna in its wrong place, on the right side of the back panel.)

Okay, so instead of going through screwing it all back into place, I plug back in the battery and try the radio. Surprise surprise, it works! I walk into the house and state to Sage, "Your husband is dumber than a box of hammers." "Oh good!", she replied. I assume she was stating that I must have figured out what I did wrong. But it didn't sound like a compliment.


Hooray! After getting everything hooked up and tested (including all the climate controls, every speaker, and and even the cigarette lighter), I'm able to get everything put back into place. In this photo you'll see the USB cable coming down the right part of the dash. This is what my iPod connects to, and I was able to tape up most of the excess cable under the dash so it's not too noticeable. The old radio on top of the dash is just for dramatic context.

So after it's all said and done, it took me about 5 total hours getting it in, over 2 days, and 2 trips to Home Depot. I'm all set to change up the receiver on the VUE now as well, and I'm thinking now that I'm an "expert", it should only take an hour or so. Nevertheless, I think I'll still start that project by 8:00 am.