This is something I was going to look into after I get all the other dash lights converted to blue LED's. I'd be really surprised if those aren't surface mounted though.
Remove the two screws from the back of the headunit that hold the top plate on.
Top plate taken off. In this picture, you can see that I removed the rubber strip around the faceplate of the headunit. This IS NOT NEEDED. I did this and instantly realized I didn't need to. Rubber is back on, but its a pain to line up correctly. Just leave the rubber strip intact.
Here's the cool part. Use a screwdriver to pry the faceplate away from the tabs that hold it in and the entire thing will swivel down. I put the knobs under the faceplate to hold it up for demo purposes only, but now would be a good time to remove them. SImply pull them off.
Faceplate fully swiveled down. There is almost a full "DIN" of waste space under the cd player. You may also notice the two white plugs on the back of the faceplate and the two sockets on the headunit. When swiveled back up, these match right up and connect.
Another shot of the two sockets on the headunit (white rectangles under the cd player)
Once again, you wont need to remove the rubber ring here. Just use a screwdriver and pry the tabs apart gently. Mine kept re-locking when I would move to another tab, so I used a small screwdiver to hold one of the tabs open and moved onto the others.
Finally, the LEDS. These, as you can clearly see, are surface mounted...
Here is a picture of the LED up close. As I inspected the LED's I noticed they all had blue rubber sleeves on them...So i removed one.
Here is the same LED with the blue rubber sleeve removed. Not sure if replacing these with different colors would achieve somewhat the same effect or not. If you absolutely want to change out the LED's, you will need to separate the circut board from the face plate.
The circuit board is held on by tabs that are bent sideways. Line these tabs back up to the holes and the board should pop out.
Since I am not actually doing any LED work on this, this is where I put everything back together. Hopefully these crappy webcam pics will help you out. I hate not having a digital camera.
stupid question here, but why not just remove the covers... if you were going for a white look, the blue covers missing should give you a white look and brighten the display at the same time...
I dont think those covers have anything to do with color. Cause isn't the display color a yellowish color anyways? How would a blue cover cause a yellow result?
Thats just my initial reasoning why those covers I dont think do much.
This little project actually gave me some ideas. The headunit is the most commonly stolen item (and the first thing a thief looks at before breaking in). I have had 3 stolen from me and, even though my faceplate was off during my last break in, I think the high-end deck game them a good idea that I had something in the back (subs, amp, cap, distributor block, etc). The faceplate on the stock stereo pops right off so...
If I could sink my kit in about 1/2", I could use that faceplate as a cover to deter thieves a little more. Granted, it would be a pain to remove it everytime, but I have to park in downtown Atlanta in various surface lots so I could get some use out of it there. I wouldnt use it all the time, just when Ifelt like the threat was a little higher.
That faceplate idea is a common 'thought' amongst a lot of my buddies, but rarely done. I was actually thinking the same thing when I saw how flat the face was when removed... If you do it, please post pics and if not, if I do it, I will post.
A buddy of mine actually did had a fake face-plate made for his Ranger.
His wasn't a pain to remove at all.
It just stuck into place and stayed there.
To remove it you just pulled on the volume knob or stuck your finger in the tape slot and it came right off exposing the aftermarket headunit and EQ.
It was very cool.
Of course, it kind of defeated the purpose for him to have Kappa tweeters
mounted on the A-pillars in plain sight, but... :roll:
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