No Screws

Looks like I owe the people at Crutchfield an apology. I said their instructions for taking apart my dashboard were wrong, but–heh–it turns out I missed a page. How about that? It was only a seventy-dollar mistake. A commenter said the part I busted was a tiny doodad available in auto parts stores, but it’s not, so I had to get a new panel. I could have crammed the old one back in there, broken, but the idea made me mad.

My other complaints, I stand beside.

Against my better judgment, I decided to give the stereo installation another shot. This time, the dash came apart correctly, and I didn’t destroy anything. But the instructions for fitting the receiver to the dash were wrong. The receiver came with something called a DIN sleeve, which is a sleeve of thin perforated metal. The receiver slides into it. The instructions said to beat on this thing until it gripped the adapter that mates the receiver to the truck, but for reasons even more boring than this blog entry has already become, that did not work. The receiver projected out too far.

I called them up to whine, and they pointed out that there were some other parts I could use. I might have realized this, had the receiver adaptor thing come with instructions instead of a tiny diagram with almost no text. It turns out this will work, IF I can find screws to attach the new parts to the receiver. So I have to go to the hardware store.

I was afraid I’d have to drill holes in the truck to mount the GPS antenna, but the Crutchfield tech said I could put it on my dashboard. That would be a whole lot better.

I guess the only thing that will cause a real problem is running the rear-view camera cable. I still haven’t found a place where I can get it into the cab from outside the truck. Maybe I can find a crack in the transmission-hump opening. If I can do that, forget the custom installation guy. I’m home-free.

This was an unbelievably stupid idea. I will never do this again.

After I move my old Alpine to my dad’s Explorer.