Liz's New Car Stereo with iPod Integration

So, my girlfriend bought an iPod and iTrip, but since the antenna in the beetle is over the backseat, it basically requires you to hold it in order to get really good reception. She could have used a tape deck adapter, except her mom drove the car for many years and after an extraordinary number of books on tape the cassette deck in the factory stereo wore out.

Enter the Alpine CDA-9827 Head Unit, coupled to an Alpine KCA-420i iPod integration unit. We purchased this from Crutchfield, so it came with everything we needed to put it in - factory stereo removal tools, wiring harness, antenna adapter, trim pieces, and instructions. They make sure you have everything you need to do the job (except tools, of course). It was quite painless (excepting the antenna adapter, which we'll get into later).

The parts:

Head unit with remote and face plate, plus the iPod interface box. This unit was chosen because of the blue lights, which match the lights on the dials and gauges (blue and red) more closely than the green one that can be gotten for $30 cheaper. (The cheaper one is also less powerful with fewer preamp outputs. Of course, Liz doesn't want her car to have "mad phat bump, yo", so they're kind of wasted. But, it's blue.)

Pulling the old head unit

The old stereo came out easily. The stereo removal tools slot in, snap a retention clip out of the way, and then the whole unit easily slides out of the dash. The only hitch is that the wires offer some resistance. You kind of just have to pull it - after all, people got it in there, you have to be able to get it out.

Here we see all the wires attached to the back of the old stereo. On the left, we see the interface cables. The blue one seems to be for the CD changer, so we don't use it in this application. The other two attach to the wiring harness. On the right, we have the antenna connector. All of these wires should be disconnected to free the stock unit.

Here we have the empty dash, and the wiring connectors. The antenna connector is the wire on the right side, but the end is up in the dash.

The Wiring Harness

This is the wiring harness. Of course, the Alpine came with a harness and Crutchfield threw in a VW harness. All we had to do was compare the two wiring diagrams and match up what goes where, then solder them together. For the most part, it was like color to like color. A little solder and some heat shrink tubing and all is right in the world. Of course, Liz took this opportunity to practice her soldering skills.

All the loose wires were bundled together with zip ties, and then I took up some of the slack (because some of the wires were longer than others) by loose loops. Note the 10A fuse on the power line. I was worried about getting to it if it blows, but we'll see later that we can actually get to it without pulling the head unit; just take out a couple screws from a trim piece for access.

Where to put the interface box?

Okay, so the big question is, where do we stick it? The box only comes with about a 7 foot (2.1m) cable. The principle directives are that:

1. There should be a minimum of visible wiring.
2. The interface box should be hidden from view.
3. (Ideally) that the iPod should be hidden from view

We thought about putting it in the trunk, as this person did. We could run the cable out the bottom of the dash, under the trip pieces, then up the floor and under the back seat into the trunk. Of course, this would require a much longer cable. There are 16 foot (4.8m) cables available, but we didn't have one, and we wouldn't have time to get one in order to do the installation this weekend. Some readers might ask why we didn't use the CD changer cable. Well, I opened up the Ai-Net cable and found that it was a pretty heavily shielded affair with a metal jacket around it. The CD changer cable didn't have a jacket, and I was worried that the jacket was there for a reason - presumably to shield the system from interference. So, I opted to use the factory cable.

The other thing is that Liz wasn't sure which would be better - an accessible iPod, or a hidden one. So, we decided to try it with what we had, and ignore directive 3 (above). However, this brings us back to: where do we put the interface box? We tried to fit it into the dash, and that's just not going to happen in the '98.

Poking around in the interior, we had a few ideas.

• Q: How about under the seat?
• A: We thought about this. Examining how the seat moves back and forth, we didn't think there was enough clearance to put the box there, and that it would constantly be kicked around.
• Q: Why not put it where the CD changer goes?
• A: In the '98-'02 beetles, the CD changer goes in the trunk. I later models, it has been moved into the armrest. As I said above, we examined the trunk and may put it there if Liz doesn't like it where it is now.
• Q: What about the glove box?
• A: We tried this. First, it's a little small. Second, and more importantly, we couldn't pull the wires from the glove box to the dash. We tried, we just couldn't make it work.

So where did we put it? We ended up putting it right above the hot air vent in the top corner of the passenger floorboard, on the right side of the console. Perhaps a picture from the passenger seat shows it best:

But anyway, we need to get there first, don't we?

Pulling Wires

Fishing

We used the "wire coat hanger" method of pulling wire (for those of you who don't know, you unbend a wire coat hanger and use it to fish wires).

There are a couple things to note here.

1. VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure to pull the cigarette lighter fuse. The power is on and if you're not careful, you will end up shorting the leads and blowing the fuse anyway. Don't doubt me, we did this.
2. You need to pull the wires before putting in the DIN sleeve, because it's almost impossible to fish wires from the back cutout. You need to fish from the front cutout (as pictured). Otherwise, it's almost impossible to get the angle that you need in order to come out the bottom of the console where you want to be.
3. If you look carefully, you can actually look through the dash and see where you want the wire to come out.

Here is another shot. You can see where the wire come out. It's the blue one, which happens to be the Ai-Net connector. You can also note that I've unscrewed and dropped the lower part of the dash; the part that contains the hazard flasher and window defroster buttons. This was really easy, just undo 4 screws. It also makes your life a lot easier, since you can get your hand in from the bottom and move things around.

A note here is that you want to make sure you have a 90 degree angle connector to connect to the head unit. Otherwise, you won't be able to get the unit all the way in. The plug hits the back and the unit won't go in all the way. (We learned this the hard way and had to pull another set of wires.

Another note here is that the easiest way to pull the wires (especially with that 90 that gets caught on stuff) is to push the wire coat hanger down from the top, then tape the end that is going to the bottom to it, and pull that end through from the bottom. The reason is that, on the Ai-Net cable, the straight connector is probably easier to pull, and on the iPod cable, the connector attaching to the interface box is more robust than the one connecting to the iPod.

Ai-Net, Antenna, and Interface Wires

Here we see most of the wires. The white and silver plug is the antenna adapter, and the large square white plug is the alpine interface plug. The blue cable is the Ai-Net cable. The antenna plug has been plugged into the antenna adapter and stuffed back, as has the VW to Alpine wiring harness.

Some more notes:

1. The little blue wire next to the antenna adapter is some sort of auxiliary ground. I elected not to use it, because I don't think it's needed in this application. Plus, the signal sounded fine.
2. The antenna adapter we got really was a piece of crap. There is a large metal barrel, which contains a bit of circuitry. The problem is that the connector can slide pretty freely in this barrel. Push it one way, and you get a fine connection and good reception. Pull it the other way and you end up with static. So, a took it apart and used copious amounts of electrical tape to get it where I wanted, then put it back together. Of course, that wasn't the only issue - it tended to come loose from the car's antenna connector (more electrical tape fixed this) and also from the Alpine unit's connector (still more electrical tape fixed this). Of course, I can't really fault the connector for the last two problems - this is just an example of a bad design enforcing more bad design on other people. Why not use a good positive clip retention system like with everything else VW? Hunh? Anyway, I'm going to email Crutchfield about the antenna adapter. I appreciate that they included one, I just think they need to start using better quality ones.

iPod Interface Wires

Here we see the iPod Interface wires (it's the black one between the antenna adapter and the blue Ai-Net cable. This picture also shows the WRONG connector for the Ai-Net cable. Remember - you want the 90 up this end, not the straight! We made this mistake! You shouldn't!). This is step 1 of the iPod interface wire run - send the coat hanger down to the floorboard with the iPod interface cable end (the one that connects to the interface box) connected to it. This will leave the end that connects to the iPod hanging out the dash.

Okay, here comes the second part. Take the end that connects to the iPod and run it down, out the bottom of the dash. If you look, there's a little space by where the hazard light switch assembly mounts, and there's a channel behind it which should give you plenty of clearance for the cables. Note that the connector has a wide flat plug with two cables that come out to a large "bump" where they merge into one cable. (Don't ask me why they're not just one cable the whole time. Probably to keep the connector small). If you want a little more slack, you can always pull the bump through too, though this might be a tight squeeze through the trim piece. (Liz's is broken, so I don't know how tight it is).

The Trim

Crutchfield included a trim kit with two trim plates: a two-piece snap together set for head units without a trim ring and a one piece one for head units with a trim ring. Since our head unit had a removable trim ring, we could use either of these approaches. We originally were going to use the single piece one, pictured below. These trim kits were really the clincher - Liz refused to get a new stereo if it was going to look like some ricer hack job. The trim kit makes it look as close to stock as you can reasonably expect.

This piece had the following pro's:

1. Slimmer design melded nicely with the dash.
2. Easier to get the faceplate off the stereo.
3. Simpler installation (the two piece one was a pain to get apart; as it turns out you just have to pull REALLY HARD)

1. The little felt strips (top and bottom) are exposed. We could have taken them off, but..
2. There's too much sharp-angled black dash.
3. With the trim ring on the head unit, there's just WAY too much silver for an all-black interior.

The first piece of the two piece trim kit is screwed into place:

(The astute reader will notice that we're still using the wrong Ai-Net connector. Yes, we only realized it wouldn't fit after we got this far, then had to re-pull the wire. This includes pulling out the DIN mount, because, as I said, you can't fish wires from the back cutout...)

Final Installation

The wires are connected and the head unit and it is pushed into place. We did it without the faceplate on so that we wouldn't scratch the faceplate.

Then the second piece of the two-piece trim kit is snapped over. This trim kit has the following advantages:

1. Hides the goofy felt things.
2. More natural curve to the dash (except the two ends which stick out).

1. The ends stick out more than the previous one. We speculate that this is to give you something to grab on to if you even need to pull it apart. Since it's difficult to get the stereo out without pulling it apart, they are probably necessary.
2. Since it sticks out farther than the other trim piece, the stereo is effectively more recessed. This makes it more difficult to get the faceplate off. You can still do it, it just takes about five minutes of fiddling to do so. Of course, Liz and I don't typically venture out to places where we're that worried about having our radios ripped off.

Here we see it with the faceplate in. Liz is playing Redneck woman. Did I mention that her one flaw is an affinity for country music?

I've buttoned up the lower access to the dash. Note that this is how we plan on changing the fuse on the radio's power line if necessary. It's easier to get at the fuse from underneath than it is to pull the stereo all apart again. You can see the iPod connector between the gearshift knob and the hazard light button.

Hiding the Box

This requires a little creativity in order to get into position. I didn't feel like lying on the asphalt, so I pushed the seat back, then cranked the upright portion to be as flat as it goes. The result?

After some wire stuffing and careful positioning, this is the result. The little black square plastic thing at the bottom of the picture is the air vent.

The little piece of foam hides most of it and holds it in place reasonably well. We'll have to see how it does long term. If needed, we can use some Velcro (some Velcro is included with the interface box) to hold it in place.

All done

Future plans