can you pop it out and maybe strap it inside the fuse panel or below the dash?
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Yup. That’s the plan. There’s enough room to do that but I’m still thinking about jumping wires if I can to keep the button from being accidentally pressed (not that I think that’ll even be possible).
Hey Todd, I have a bass knob and the controller for my minidsp and Steve mounted them in the little cubby like you have below your switch panel. Rather than making some sort of face plate to put them in, he put some little magnets on the base of each knob and matching magnets on the base of the cubby. If I need to use the cubby for storage, the knobs just move out of the way and pop back in place when needed.
That’s not a bad idea. I put the knob in a similar cubby in the Malibu but the biggest issue I have is with the size of the “box” that’s attached to the knob. You’d really have to hack the cubby up to fit the wire & box through and I don’t want to do that.
Attachment 17941
All of that is connected together. It’s one of the only things I can say JL’s engineers didn’t think all the way through.
Got a bit more done in limited action this weekend due to Ian but luckily all I got was a lot of rain.
Under the HVAC panel, and just forward of the shifter, is a panel with a small “mood lighting” LED. So I popped it out and did a little investigating.
Attachment 17942
Popped out the LED and the gray plug/housing
Attachment 17943
Made up a small ABS panel
Attachment 17944
Hot glued that bugger in place and inserted the LED for the TWK
Attachment 17945
I’m still not sure the light won’t be too bright but I did find a bit of a solution if it’s still too much at night. I’ll just have to wait and see.
I also managed to get the drivers side sail panel mocked up before yet another downpour began. Because of the constant in/out during trial fitting, and not wanting to get wet, I decided to stop for today. Here’s what I have so far…
Attachment 17946Attachment 17948Attachment 17947
I’m not sure why the pics are sideways, I even tried rotating them and then adding them again but they still come up sideways. Anyway… if they’re not directly on axis, it’s only a few degrees off so I’m calling it on-axis. I’m going to try to get the passenger one done in the next evening or 2. Thursday we’ll start the sub box and amp rack/wiring. Yay, gettin stuff done!
The LED for the TWK is very bright. I used black Flex-Seal and a paint brush and painted the little light bulb. I just left a small dot of the LED exposed. That worked great to dim the bulb. Nice work Todd, Can't wait to see it some day.
Attachment 17957
Pic is sideways again… Meh, I give up. Passenger side mocked up. That is all for today. Maybe I’ll get some fabric stretched over them tomorrow depending on weather. I’m kinda tired of working in the cold & wet.
Day 1 in the books…
The front doors in this car fairly solid with only a few small holes. I managed to apply Killmat to about 75% of the outer skin and about 50% of the inner.
Attachment 17958Attachment 17959
I was pleasantly surprised that this car, even being a ‘14, had a wire boot and not a molex connector. I didn’t get a pic of the pass side door but here’s the driver’s
Attachment 17960
and I got the TM65s mounted
Attachment 17961Attachment 17962
I ran the power wire through the firewall and down the driver’s side under the sill plate
Attachment 17963
Next was the task of getting the ski pass door removed
Attachment 17964
Easy peasy, slide the rod out
Attachment 17965
and voilŕ, no door
Attachment 17966
I’m still not sure why some pics are sideways. Am I doing something wrong?
I also pulled the rear shelf, removed the rear speakers & applied Killmat
Attachment 17967
I also finished applying the Killmat to the rest of the trunk. I failed to get finished pics as I was cruising along and forgot. I did manage, however, to take a pic of the awesome “deadening” job done by the factory
Attachment 17968
While the doors were apart I applied tesa tape to the seat memory switch as they’re known to rattle even with just the factory speakers
Attachment 17969
I also got the BSM switch zip-tied behind the dash
Attachment 17970
And mounted the Twk knob with minimal modifications.
Attachment 17973
and while things were apart I noticed this little spot above the cubby that looked perfect for the Twk LED.
Attachment 17971
So I pulled the LED out of the center piece it was in and moved it to here. It’s kinda tough to see but now I don’t have to worry about the brightness and I can just drop the cubby door to verify color/preset.
Attachment 17972
Again with the sideways pics. I give up.
So we’ll be back at it tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Now that I got the OEM radio out you can see why you can’t just pull the airbag light out of the JBL radio. You can see through the “window” that the circuit board is all one piece
Attachment 17979
Depending on the lighting and/or angle the shade of the vinyl wrapped kit looks much different than it does in person. The camera & lighting seems to exaggerate the difference while in person it’s really not that bad. It actually matches the shade of the “leather” on the rest of the dash.
Attachment 17980Attachment 17981
But the new head unit is in and I can now confirm that using the airbag light from a non-JBL donor radio will, in fact, work.
Attachment 17982
Mids are mounted & wired
Attachment 17983
Because the SI 3” is bigger than the OEM 2” the grille had to be trimmed on the back side and also because of the larger speaker I couldn’t attach the “fast ring” to the baffle. So with a little more trimming I was able to stick it to the grille to isolate the front wave from the back.
Attachment 17984
I removed the center dash speaker and put the GPS antenna in its place.
Attachment 17985
3 sets of speaker wires, power wire & Twk cable run down the left side
Attachment 17986
3 sets of speaker wires, 1 RCA & remote run down the right
Attachment 17987
So the sub box & amp rack didn’t get built today but should happen Monday. This weekend I’ll concentrate on mounting the fuse holder in the engine compartment as well as finishing the tweeter sails. After that it’s just trunk.