Well I got the bright idea about a week ago to remove the faceplate from the deck. With having a computer system and dvd player in my car, I don't need the headunit for CD, but I do want it for FM and AM, as well as I am real cheap and instead of buying 1 more amp ..which would make 3... I jsut want to run two speakers off of the deck. I could just mount teh head unit as normal.. but with the LCD and DVD.. im out of freakin room

So I got started a few days later (had wisdom teeth pulled, didnt feel like concentrating on tiny solder points) and I had it all wired up, brought a battery in to bench test it and!!! .... nothing! I couldnt get it to even power on, little alone light up the faceplate.. so I thought wonderfull.. i fried the basturd while soldering.. So I took all the wires and solder off, cleaned up the pads as much as I could, and tried to see if it would work as normal.. maybe just there wasnt enough voltage going through the wires to the faceplate, or it was shorting but it didnt fry... Well connecting the faceplate as normal, the deck turned on, but not faceplate power... WONDERFULL!! I fried my 400 dollar deck.. Why the hell didnt I get an old deck and try it? Well then I realised how stupid I am, and noticed a second pin switch to tell when the faceplate is in the up position to apply power. It is a huge pin switch too, I just thought it was a button for reset... So after slamming my head against a while a few times yelling STUPID STUPID, I figured I woudl wire it back up. I went and got a proper soldering tip, some higher gauge wire, some solder that I didnt find in an old tool box I found in the basement of my old house covered in webs and time, and made a nice little holder for my faceplate with a good light. Well, about 4 hours later, and neighbours covering their children's ear, running away from my house saying the lords prayer from all my swearing, IT WORKED!!! And it is still working BEAUTIFULLY!!!

So now, I need ot decide... mount it in a rear view mirror? and put the glass to the mirror on a hinge? This would look real cool, but the mirror would end up being pretty big and deep.... Or, refab a new roof center console / map light thingy, and put the faceplate in there. This would still look cool, I could upgrade the look of the roof, and it would be SO MUCH DAMN EASIER!!!

so yeah.. pictures below and stuff

So in closing, I have come to the conclusion, that even though I start a million projects at once and rarely finish them, and that I never use the right tools to do them because im either cheap or too lazy to get the proper ones, and I really don't think before I do stuff... I STILL FREAKING RULE!!!

Disclaimer : I apologize for my ego, there is no excuse, its just so hard to hide the fact that I RULE!

Doesn't matter what you do, its gonna look awesome. I wouldn't have the courage to fool around with my deck!

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1986 Fiero SE

i've got a couple like that. alpine made them years back. i picked up one in a stereo shop and later got a couple more off ebay for spares. i think the model # is 5953 (haven't looked at it for a while) for the face and control box. then the tuner box and changer have different #'s, but i can't remember what they are.

i was just telling some one else on pff the other day i was gonna do that very same thing and i have our lectric repair shop making up a protocol cable so i can remove the plate from the car when its up in the light thing in the center of the ceiling

quote Originally posted by Philphine: i've got a couple like that. alpine made them years back. i picked up one in a stereo shop and later got a couple more off ebay for spares. i think the model # is 5953 (haven't looked at it for a while) for the face and control box. then the tuner box and changer have different #'s, but i can't remember what they are.

If I am thinking of the same thing as you, those are just external controllers.. almost all top rated decks out there have some sort of mountable remote, or external controller. This one is the actual faceplate. What I was thinkin when I originally thought of it, but soon decided against it because I need my LCD moveable, was to put the LCD on actuators and hinges and have it lift up, and underneith have the deck without the face plate. I thought that would have been real cool, and simple, but instead I am mounting my LCD on a knuckle joint, so that I can slightly tilt it in all angles.

i'm not ignoring whatever you wrote. one of the problems for me with the new forum changes is a lot of things are blank on the screen.

if you quote someone, i can read the quote but the rest of the post is blank (except for smileies. ?).

if it was important i'll try to look at it at work or please just remove the quote if it was something you needed an answer to. thanks.

I have ahd the same thing happen, but only in the quote boxes. The color for the text is the same as the backround, if you highlight the text or hit cntrl A, you should be able to see the text, as long as it is the same problem I was having. But what I wrote wasnt important

ok, i'm at work so i can see it.

no this is a wired controller. it looks like a face plate, and even works like one depending on which 5953 set up you get. i've seen some that have everything together (radio and controller i mean) in a din sized piece that fits in your dash then the face works like a removable face, but the one i have has the pieces separate. the tuner is just a box with in/outputs, like a changer. you need the face to run any of it. think of it as a modular stereo.

the trickiest thing i've seen though was a few years back. some guy with a light blue 3rd gen firebird. i think it was a sony head. he took the face off so all that was in the dash was a slot for a cd. then the face was disassembled and the display was put in the rearview mirror behind the glass after he removed some of the silver for it to show through. then the controls were integrated into a pontiac steering wheel that had radio control buttons to control it. i'd love to pull off something like that.

[This message has been edited by Philphine (edited 02-11-2004).]