Thinking About Replacing The Stereo Head Unit With An Android Tablet

Almost finished! Started a bit late today, and couldn't quite finish in time. My neighbors pitch a fit if anyone makes too much noise past 10pm, even on the weekends, and I figured the sound of a Dremel tool cutting wheel was a bit much. It'll be done tomorrow. On to the pics! I removed my original radio bezel and realized that the new one was definitely a shade lighter. I set the new one in the car and it didn't look right. So, time to paint the bezel! I picked up a can of flat black, masked off the parts I wanted to leave alone, and hit it with some adhesion promoter then three coats of paint. This photo is after the third coat of paint, and waiting for the paint to cure.



I decided to paint the lip of the shifter bezel so it matched the bezel. Also picked up three plugs to fill in the switch holes in the bottom of the bezel, and painted them too.



While the paint cured, on to the dash. Had to cut off the two screw mounts off of the dash since they prevent the double-din bezel from fitting correctly. Also cut out a notch out of the bottom bracket so the switch plugs would fit. I didn't cut out quite enough around the dash since the new bezel still didn't fit. Oh well, that will be fixed tomorrow.



Here's the pieces I cut off of the dash. Man, I felt really bad about cutting my dash for some reason. Just that point of no return, I suppose.



Here I'm testing out the electronics before I mount them in the dash. At this point, I've already fabbed up a bracket out of thin aluminum bars. Should have taken a photo of just the bracket, but oh well. When I first tested the electronics, I got no sound. Turns out I missed a wire that turns the factory amps on. Oops! After adding that wire (the blue one in the upper-left), it all worked. I used the Metra adapter 70-5510 (same one I used for my radio); it has RCA plugs for the factory speakers instead of bare wires.



Here's the Clarion equalizer/amp installed in the dash. It will be completely hidden behind the bezel, of course. You can see more of the mounting bracket here. I re-used the screw hole for the original dash (all the way in the back left), and added two screws on the left and right. The black wire at the bottom will go to the headphone jack on the tablet.



This is a side shot of the bracket and how it mounts to the left side of the dash. I wanted the amp to be level, so I had to add the extra piece. Keeping the amp level makes it much easier to get to the single screw all the way in the back. I used one of those clip-on nuts to hold the bottom screw in place. You know the ones Ford is so fond of using? Yeah, those.



I used the clip-on nuts because I have a ton of them lying around. I keep any extra nuts and bolts that are leftover from any project, just in case I need one or three. Here's one case of them, and I have two more. This case is mostly the small nuts & bolts.



More pics tomorrow when I finish this job.