In this installment I have two different projects that I worked on. The first is a pretty simple thing, which is just installing a new radar detector I bought off of Ebay into the Monte Carlo. Unlike past radar detector installations, this radar detector is intended to sit on the long flush dashes of modern cars. It doesn't come with the mount that allows you to hang the unit from a suction cup to the windshield, or like I always do, attach it somewhere high like in the upper left corner of the windshield, at the A pillar.
Since this radar detector came with a sticky pad to allow the unit to stay stationary on a car's dash, I figured for the time being it'll do for the Monte, which does not have the long flush dash of a newer car. There was enough room to set the unit but in the case of this one, its temporary, until I acquire a unit that does have a hanger that I can use to suspend it from the upper A pillar. One thing that is cool about this radar detector, especially in the temporary sense, is that its power plug has a push button switch to turn the thing on and off so if its plugged into an "always on" 12v receptacle, you can at least turn the thing off so its not constantly drawing power from the car's battery. In my case that feature is necessary since the only cigarette lighter outlet (when they used to actually have a cig lighter in them) is always on. Well the installation was quick and straightforward, 5 minutes and everything was ready to go. I used a two way 12v receptacle to give me two outlets since I already had a Bluetooth radio adapter plugged in to allow me to Bluetooth my phone to the radio. That device just transmits to the radio on a dead station and connects to the phone via Bluetooth so I can use the radio like a newer radio where I can play shit from my phone to the radio. One thing that I would really appreciate is for manufacturers to make radar detectors that are 5v powered so they can be powered from a USB receptacle versus a 12v/cigarette lighter receptacle. It would make things a lot easier since a standard micro USB cable can be used to hook the unit up to power. But until then the Monte has this temporary radar detector in place ready to sniff out piggies hiding in the distance up ahead. The next order of business was to install a Bluetooth radio that I salvaged from the Grand Prix that we scrapped recently. Now you may ask, "why not install it into the Monte?" To answer that, the Monte already has a radio, the Dodge does not. I sure as shit ain't about to swap radios to put this Bluetooth radio into the Monte then install the Monte's old radio in the Dodge, only to replace it later on with a better radio, so the Dodge gets the Bluetooth and the Monte will get a new Bluetooth radio in the near future or when this radio finally craps out. Anyway, to install the radio I had to fabricate a mounting bracket for the radio, which is a single DIN radio. I had to take the plate that held the Dodge's old radio, along with a single DIN radio mount and put the two together to make a mount that would go into the Dodge with minimum headache and minimum or no butchering on the Dodge's dash panel. With this done I moved to the wiring. Since the radio needs two power points, one a constant 12v and one a switched 12v, I had to get an inline fuse to use for the constant 12v. For the switched 12v I just used one of the extra fuse terminals on the fuse block that I used for the Dodge's rewiring in the past. With the power portion done I had to do the speaker wire. Of course this is all new since I pulled all the old wiring out when I rewired the car. Since I only had one little bullshit speaker, which was gonna be used for testing purposes, I elected to do just one speaker wire run just to confirm the radio was going to work. Instead of routing the pair of wires along the driver's side rocker panel with the other wiring that goes to the rear of the car, I chose the passenger side. I routed everything as neatly as possible with a minimum of wire ties, since I'll have to add another pair of wires for a second speaker in the future. I ran the wires up along the side where the rear window regulator is at and terminated at the back panel (or the area where the back panel will go) and used the speaker's magnet to secure it in place on the metal. With the wires hooked to the speaker I went to the antenna. Since all of that was still in place it was a simple matter of just hooking the antenna to the radio and wire tying the cable in a neat manner under the dash so its not in the way of the fuse box or other wiring or HVAC hardware. With that I turned the key on and got the radio to come on. I tuned into a station and even though it was staticky, it worked. I synced my phone to the radio successfully and played a Iheartradio station successfully and clear, which told me the radio was just fine. Now I just need to get some speakers for the thing and make a rear panel to hang them from. Another project for another day...
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