Nightmare Installing New Head Unit (Plug + Cage Issues) Help lol..

[Skezza]

I offered to help my friend install a new Double Din head unit in his Lupo. His old radio was a single DIN stereo that must have come from ASDA's bargain bin for about 5 quid. The sound quality, even when playing CD's was atrocious. Unfortunately, I wrongly equated his dreadful radio reception to the fact the unit is a bag of ****.

So, problem number one, we got the single DIN unit out (with some difficulty) and were shocked to find the OEM radio cable which has a DIN plug on the end, has been cut off and taped up. In fact, the antenna was a piece of wire shoved in the head unit aerial socket. That probably explains the issues with reception. So obviously we need to put a new plug on the end. The problem is, I'm struggling to work out which plug type. It looks a lot like this one:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Car-Radio-Aerial-Antenna-Coax-Interface-Adapter-DIN-Plug-to-ISO-Socket-AM-FM-/271217679347?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f25d55bf3

But I'd appreciate a second opinion on that.

We decided to marshall on, but this brings us on to our next issue: it just isn't going in very nicely. It's hard to explain, but I'll do my best:

The cage, which is needed to get it into the dash, goes in very tight but seems to slowly push itself out, even when the head unit isn't installed, so there are immediately gaps at the front where it should be flush against the dash. I've never used a cage (usually use an FP-17-00) before so I don't understand if I've done something wrong or do I need to tape it down using some masking tape? I'm not particularly happy with the way the radio looks in the dash, it doesn't look right at all. I'm wondering if the plugs behind the radio are preventing it moving in fully. I've already removed the plastic bar behind the head unit, but I'm still struggling to get the unit in.

Help

[Mrcherrywood]

Have you got some pics? will make it easier to give some advice

[stator]

Pushing itself out makes me think there are some cables behind that are being compressed when you push it in and then push it back out again when you take the pressure off. Can you see what's going on with a torch?

[Skezza]

OK Quick Update, stator was right there was a cable preventing the cage from going in properly. That said, once we finally got it to sit right and what not, it still looked like a bag of ****. For one, it didn't look straight in the dash and no matter what we did, it just wouldn't. It wasn't the cage in the dash, because it sat right, it was the head unit inside the cage that didn't look straight and it was just awful. Also the cage left massive gaps at the top and bottom and because the front fascia wouldn't go on because the cage was too close to the front, it was all in all a complete fail, so we put our creative minds to it and had a think. We popped down to the local Halfraudo Cunto's and picked up a FP-17-00 which is my personal recommendation for sliding a head unit into the dash. Nope, the new head unit wouldn't fit in because it has a slightly bigger face than a normal double din so there is a lip that hangs over the end of the head unit by about 3mm or 4mm, so we had a brainstorming session.

We hacksawed the front trim of the FP-17-00 off (the part you're supposed to use with a pry tool to get the head unit out... *gulp* especially in the future), and then slid it in to the correct depth. It now looks perfect and the front plastic fascia now clips on perfectly. It'll be a pain to get out (probably a case of dropping the underdash) but no pain, no gain, as they say and once it's done, it won't be coming out very often I'm guessing.

Now it's just a case of fixing the radio antenna plug. I've bought one from the link I posted above, just hope it's the right one. I took a photo of mine so you can see the plug:

Edited November 11, 2013 by Skezza

[stator]

That looks like the standard plug you've bought. If the radio takes a DIN aerial you'll need an adapter

[Skezza]

That's fine, I just want to install the plug that was fitted as standard.

[Skezza]

So, all's well, that ends well: We fitted the new plug today, although it wasn't as straightforward as we thought it would be. I don't think this needs to be made into a How To lol but I'll put the steps how we fitted a new plug. Unfortunately, I never thought to take a photo till we'd finished... grr sorry.

So, before I do explain how we eventually sorted it, we purchased the plug from eBay for 99p. It arrived in the post with no instructions at all, but I was able to find a fairly abstract explanation of how to install it. This is the OEM-style plug:

Truth be told, it was an absolute disaster trying to fit it. The biggest problem was that the instructions seemed to suggest the best way of doing it was to feed the live cable (centre core) in first, followed by the screen, then test to make sure it's okay, then crimp, then drop some solder in. it sounded far more straightforward than it was and we struggled for over half an hour before we gave up and had a quick think about how else we could do it.

I remembered at home I had an old broken PC5-52:

These are only a few pounds off eBay, but I had a faulty one spare because the silver canister had an earthing problem. I'd never tried to find out what it was, I just told the company to send me another one and they did. As you can see, black aerial cable and plug matches the OEM-spec, so we decided we'd simply use that instead. I'd recommend this over trying to fit one of the 99p plugs. For £3, this literally took us 5-10 minutes and now has a perfectly working antenna again.

OK, so the first thing we did, was we cut the antenna cable off the PC5-52, as close to the canister as we could, more wire is easier to work with. Then we cut back around an inch, maybe a little more of the black plastic on both the OEM aerial wire and the piece we'd removed from the PC5-52. We also threaded a decent size piece of heatshrink, for when we had finished the job to make it look as OEM as possible. If you don't use heatshrink, electrical tape is fine.

Aerial wire is made up of (from the inside out):

the centre core (live, thin middle threaded core), a plastic insulator (clear plastic on OEM aerial wiring, orange plastic on PC5-52), the screen (threads of wire braided around the plastic insulator, to prevent interference) and the black plastic outer coating.

We cut away roughly 2cm of the plastic insulator from both the OEM wiring and the piece we were attaching. We threaded a piece of thin heatshrink on one side, ready for when we connected the live to act as our new insulator. Electrical tape is okay for this.

We connected the two centre cores, twisting them so they felt tight, then soldered them. We moved the piece of heatshrink over the solder joint and used a heatgun to shrink so it looked very neat and won't suffer from interference.

Next, we took the screen from both cables and twisted them individually, so they both became two single thickish cores. We then took the two cores and twisted them, so they became connected as one and were nice and tight, we soldered them with a reasonable amount of solder as it was a fairly thick connection.

Now is an important step, as you will suffer interference problems if you don't follow this, take a piece of tin foil (just ordinary kitchen foil will do) and rip a piece to the size (approximately) of the join we've made. It doesn't hurt to be generous, but don't forget, the foil will be acting as our new screen so it needs to make direct contact with the thick connection you've just soldered. Wrap it round and press it together tightly in your fist. You should feel the tin foil press onto the cable you've just soldered. That'll be enough to act as a good screen. Trim any excess that might ruin the neatness, but don't forget, you want the tinfoil to cover the entire exposed area, so don't trim too much.

Now finally move the piece of heatshrink that you added at the start over the top of the foil and use the heatgun to finish the job. We were pretty chuffed how this turned out and the signal is absolutely perfect.

Photo that I took after we'd finished, again apologies for not taking more, but I'm guessing this isn't too common an issue so hopefully you won't have the same problem

Any questions, feel free to PM

Edited November 18, 2013 by Skezza

[MichaelGT]

i had the same pushing out issue with mine, i solved it by cutting off the back part of the bit that the cage goes into, if that makes sense?

i also removed the panel underneath and tucked all the wires away from there then put it back on.

sorry if i haven't described it well but just ask and i'll try to go into more detail

[Skezza]

i had the same pushing out issue with mine, i solved it by cutting off the back part of the bit that the cage goes into, if that makes sense?

i also removed the panel underneath and tucked all the wires away from there then put it back on.

sorry if i haven't described it well but just ask and i'll try to go into more detail

I didn't think to cut the cage to be honest. Using the modified FP-17-00 works really well and it isn't as hard to slide out as I expected it to be It slides in really well and it feels nicely padded against the rear of the insert. Works well.

I think that with most of these things you sometimes have to be willing to hack a bit before it works, but now that we've fixed the aerial and pushed the unit back flush, it looks great!

Edited November 18, 2013 by Skezza

[East Coast Bmx]

Ive got the same problem of the cage sliding out. Problem i encountered was my fault, the more it pushed out i got rather piddled off with the head unit, Smacked it one and smashed the touch screen.

Brand new head unit aswell

[Skezza]

Bad luck. I've found head unit fitting is a bit of an art. I've had some fit beautifully and others that have never quite fitted right/flush.

Just make sure it's secure and you'll be fine.

[Dblock]

Problem i encountered was my fault

Ahh, thought it was the headunit's fault for installing itself wrong.

[Skezza]

To be fair, there's a lesson to be had there. Brute force doesn't work. It's all about doing it carefully.

[East Coast Bmx]

Fitting the new touch screen was an experience

Edited March 23, 2015 by East Coast Bmx

[Skezza]

I've fitted a fair few on different Lupo's. The real problem is that Loops have hardly any space and head units are all different. Some use individual RCA's for input and non standard outputs <3 whereas some use wiring looms (grrrr)

[East Coast Bmx]

Skezza

Is there one or two wires on the horn connection?

Need to know for aftermarket horn push

Jake...

[East Coast Bmx]

Ahh, thought it was the headunit's fault for installing itself wrong.

[Silver!]

Brute force doesn't work.

Does too. May not look very pretty, but a hammer often helps...

[Skezza]

Does too. May not look very pretty, but a hammer often helps...

Ok, if you want it to look pretty it doesn't

Skezza

Is there one or two wires on the horn connection?

Need to know for aftermarket horn push

Jake...

Two

[Dblock]

Does too. May not look very pretty, but a hammer often helps...

Lol as skezza says there isn't much room behind the headunit. The wires tend to get all bunched up. The ISO connectors plus the aerial and RCA's need to be carefully placed down the sides or there is no chance of it going in. I know as I tried to press the first one in with my foot.

[East Coast Bmx]

Ok, if you want it to look pretty it doesn't

Two

Nice one pal, Cheers for that.

[Skezza]

Lol as skezza says there isn't much room behind the headunit. The wires tend to get all bunched up. The ISO connectors plus the aerial and RCA's need to be carefully placed down the sides or there is no chance of it going in. I know as I tried to press the first one in with my foot.

For me, the biggest annoyance is no two head units are alike. Yes, Double DIN is a standard, but even then, there are differences and therefore, some fit better than others. The head unit I have now, fits okay, but the one I had before fitted much better.

Also, it infuriates me that many companies continue to persist with these horrible long rectangular block connectors to handle the non-standard input/output lines, (i.e. composite inputs, RCA outs etc). These are a ****ing pain in the arse because they leave loads of unused dangling wires that make the whole thing a lot harder to get in. I imagine on newer Lupo's, that's even harder, because you don't have the big space underneath as that is taken by the cup holders.

There is absolutely no justification for using those horrible connectors, they not only make the whole thing a lot harder to install, but if they fail, you have a nightmare replacing them, as.... of course, those connectors themselves aren't standardized so you can't just buy a ready made replacement.

Good:

Standard ISO connector neatly located at the bottom right of the unit Each input/output is optional. They're neatly positioned, USB connectors are nicely laid at the bottom and the antenna is the opposite side to the ISO block connector. This is exactly how a head unit should be designed to make it easy for the installer.

Bad:

All RCA connectors form part of 'RCA' loom which means if you want to have just a single line-in, you will have to install that entire loom with perhaps 6, 7, 8 unused wires taking up all the space. This is very annoying. I'll ignore that hard plumbed Camera wire because it's quite short but this also a bit naughty. The power socket and antenna socket could also be located nearer the edge to allow more space centrally. However, at least with this unit the RCA loom isn't mandatory therefore you could save a lot of space by not using it.

****ing Disastrous:

Look at that ****ing nightmare. All those cables, all your RCA cables, e.g. are basically hard-plumbed into the unit so the only way is to either cut them off (pretty much ruining the unit) or deal with them somehow. Whoever designed this abortion deserves a ****ing kick in the teeth for that piss-take.

[East Coast Bmx]

For me, the biggest annoyance is no two head units are alike. Yes, Double DIN is a standard, but even then, there are differences and therefore, some fit better than others. The head unit I have now, fits okay, but the one I had before fitted much better.

Also, it infuriates me that many companies continue to persist with these horrible long rectangular block connectors to handle the non-standard input/output lines, (i.e. composite inputs, RCA outs etc). These are a ****ing pain in the arse because they leave loads of unused dangling wires that make the whole thing a lot harder to get in. I imagine on newer Lupo's, that's even harder, because you don't have the big space underneath as that is taken by the cup holders.

There is absolutely no justification for using those horrible connectors, they not only make the whole thing a lot harder to install, but if they fail, you have a nightmare replacing them, as.... of course, those connectors themselves aren't standardized so you can't just buy a ready made replacement.

Good:

Standard ISO connector neatly located at the bottom right of the unit Each input/output is optional. They're neatly positioned, USB connectors are nicely laid at the bottom and the antenna is the opposite side to the ISO block connector. This is exactly how a head unit should be designed to make it easy for the installer.

Bad:

All RCA connectors form part of 'RCA' loom which means if you want to have just a single line-in, you will have to install that entire loom with perhaps 6, 7, 8 unused wires taking up all the space. This is very annoying. I'll ignore that hard plumbed Camera wire because it's quite short but this also a bit naughty. The power socket and antenna socket could also be located nearer the edge to allow more space centrally. However, at least with this unit the RCA loom isn't mandatory therefore you could save a lot of space by not using it.

****ing Disastrous:

Look at that ****ing nightmare. All those cables, all your RCA cables, e.g. are basically hard-plumbed into the unit so the only way is to either cut them off (pretty much ruining the unit) or deal with them somehow. Whoever designed this abortion deserves a ****ing kick in the teeth for that piss-take.