| Current mood: | accomplished |
Jeep Wrangler Stereo Replacement
I recently bought a 20 GB Archos portable MP3 player (for only $103 after rebates and discounts) as many other people on FatWallet also did. It's a pretty nice player, especially due to the fact that it has the RockBox opensource Archos firmware project. I've been wanting to hook it up to the stereo in my Jeep, but hadn't been able to because my factory-shipped Chrysler stereo headunit didn't have an auxiliary line-in. Since my Jeep had a CD player and not a cassette tape player, I couldn't use one of those cassette adapters. It also didn't have a CD Changer connector so I couldn't use one of those CD Changer to AUX adapters. And I definitely didn't want to use one of those FM modulators on an empty station, since I knew it would only give me a poor quality signal.
So I figured the best option would be to get a replacement stereo headunit that would allow me to directly connect my MP3 player via an AUX input. To further complicate things, most Chrysler vehicles have a larger-sized opening in the dash for the stereo (so-called 1.5 DIN, whereas most vehicles just have a 1 DIN height opening) and I knew that I did not want to live with a solution that had a lame spacer around it to fill the gap. As it turns out, there are not that many after-market 1.5 DIN headunit models made but I selected the Pioneer DEH-P77DH that seemed to meet my needs, and ordered it online from discountcarstereo.com. It has an "IP Bus" CD Changer port in the back that can be used as AUX input with a simple adapter.
Some pictures of the installation process are in the gallery below... I had to do a bit of soldering and application of some heat shrink tubing to prepare the cabling, but probably the most difficult part of the installation was figuring out how to open the dash and remove the original stereo. I found a great website [carstereohelp.com] that has pictures showing the removal steps for a large number of cars, but it happened to admit that it was missing details on removal of one of the bolts for Jeep Wrangler. I found another Jeep Wrangler page [visi.com] but it was also a little lacking. Finally a third Jeep page [jeephorizons.com] gave a clue about removing the climate control panel and reaching from below to remove the hidden bolt.
Now everything's back together and it all works great. I have a short RCA/stereo-headphone cable dropping down into the footwell of the passenger side which I can connect to my MP3 player. My next (longer term) plan is to see if I can code up some changes to the RockBox opensource Archos firmware so that my headunit can display the current song title and advance to the next track via the "IP Bus" CD changer interface. Another guy has already done a similar trick for RockBox and the Alpine "M-Bus" protocol and someone else has done an "IP Bus" interface for a different MP3 player so I think I should be able to draw upon both of their work to do it.
(Click to embiggen)
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
bovineone) wrote,
