Handsfree Kit..

[teilo]

After reading the forums I decided that I was too much of a northerner to pay for installation that wouldn't be up to my standards anyway.

So armed with a parrot ck3100 and a SOT-122 lead (that's another story cheap **** vauxhall) I set out on saturday to wire in the parrot.

First off was getting the 12v supply which turned out to be fairly easy. A scothblock later and the cable was neatly hidden between the passenger side of the center consol and connected to the cigarette lighter 12v. with the radio out I did a quick test of the system before continuing and everything is looking good.

Next job was the mic. Fitted to the top rhs a pillar and the cable ran inside the door seal. I removed the piece of plastic under the steering wheel to tape up the cable there and then ran it behind the stero to the hole that was formally known as a glove box.

At this point I was thinking things where going well - I guess that was mistake number one...

I loosend the center air vents and LCD screen and ran the cable for the LCD behind the screen and again dropped it down behind the glovebox.

Well that didn't actually take that long, the ****** stereo and the leads however was an entirly different story

Now I understood there wasn't much room behind the radio but that's surely got to be the understatement of the century! I spent the rest of the day trying to fit the leads behind the stereo in some way that would allow the stereo to go back into it's hole. Many hours and many more expletives later the sun disappeared and I had to call it a night - which is probably a good thing as I was ready to start throwing things around.

well Sunday came and still after several hours of fiddling it just wouldn't fit no matter what I tried.

A break for lunch later and an idea hit. If the leads didn't need to go behind the stereo I wouldn't have this issue, and the only reason the leads had to go there is the original quadlock the arials tapped to to loom andinside the plastic sheath. So I removed the LCD screen and vents to get better access to the sheath and cut a hole further up the sheath and pulled the arials out of it, then tapped the hole back up. Armed with 15cm more arial leads to play with the extra cabling now fitter "relativiley" easyily to the left of the stereo. Still took a few attempts to get the radio back in with fingers poking down from the center vent hole to move wires but a good 10 hours after starting the damn thing was now back in.

a good several minutes to put everything back and tape up the control module and I've a working handsfree. Works really well and dead chuffed - but it's something I wouldn't attempt again unless I had either

1) a VDA lead
2) a wiring loom to the radio that was already populated with the wires needed and could just splice into it

[Karl]

at least you got it done, and I bet you are happier now that it is done, and done right.

Sometimes makes you realise why we pay pros to do some jobs

[teilo]

Yup I'm happy now its done and I'm a pro wouldn't have done it as neatly as I have either...

[Maddog1974]

Sorry i had to chuckle reminded me of when i changed my head unit to a double din dvd player. With all the Quadlock connector, speed pulse adaptor, navigation wiring, rca leads etc there was no room. Ended up cutting out a fair bit of plastic inside so's it would all go in!

Always good whe the jobs finished though

[G.O'Rilla]

at least you got it done, and I bet you are happier now that it is done, and done right.

Sometimes makes you realise why we pay pros to do some jobs

That's why I paid someone to put my CK3100 in the car...... It is a brilliant piece of kit, though.

[Jamie]

2) a wiring loom to the radio that was already populated with the wires needed and could just splice into it

Thats what I did.... took me all of 1/2 an hour to do the whole job once i'd go the right sockets to push the new wires into on the quadlock. I just snipped all the useless **** off the parrot loom after!