ShinWow
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- VF2 SSV 6.2L Manual
Hey all,
So I finally got around to dumping the pics onto the PC from the install I did in the VE. Wanted to share the pics for anyone interested in doing the same. I had a bit of trouble with some panels because you simply don't know how much and where to put pressure to get some panels out in fear of breaking them, so its always nice to be able to see what's on the underside
I did mine slightly different from the norm in that I didn't splice the speaker wires from the back of the head unit, instead I took them from the rear door speakers directly. I figured it was easier to pull apart the rear half of the car instead of the entire car if I wanted to run new wires from the back of the dash. This also allowed me to do a bit better job being able to access everything to solder and tie off stuff, bit more difficult when stuck underneath the dash.
Door Trim
You probably want to start with the door trims. They're fairly easy to remove. 5 screws and a bunch of clips and you're good to go.
You may find some of the clips would prefer to let go of the trim than let go of the door. Easy enough to pry out with a pair of scissors slid about half way up the blade and then levering against the door.
These top clips were new for me. Every door trim I've removed have kind of just hung over than top lip and gripped on that way.
I had bugger all rope available with this plug so it can be a bit tricky to position yourself to hold the trim up off the ground and get your hand around to unplug this. Note that the release clip for this plug is actually on the difficult side, its not on the side that you can actually access.
These should be all of the clips and screws. Yellow is the hex screw. Red are the plug clips. Orange are the top clips. Blue are the screws. Bottom screws had a thicker head on them, not sure if that matters or not.
Rear Seat
After the rear door trims are off, take out the back seat, which is very simple. There are only 2 clips holding the ass-part of the rear seat in and they're on each side (not one in the middle). Get your finger in between the underside of the seat and run it along until you feel the metal part that goes into the clip (mounted in the floor of the car). Then, around that area, just lift straight upwards with a significant amount of oomph and it'll pop out.
This picture was taken before I changed my mind and fed the cable where the red line is marked. There's a couple of standard carpet clips holding that back panel which should be easy enough to find and take out. The amp is mounted directly to the sub box which sits behind the rear-middle seat so that's why I fed everything to that location.
As a side note, note where that black boot release cable is running? On the other side (and on the passenger side) of the slotted metal area is where I ran the positive battery cable. Its held up by cable ties, so that it wasn't lying on top of the other cables in order to reduce noise.
On the passenger side you can see the thick red battery cable which runs from the engine bay into the boot where the battery is mounted. Keep all audio cables away from this as much as possible.
Front Seat Rails
Though it may not seem necessary at first, removing the outside seat rail trims is necessary in order to remove the kick panels as the kick panels clip underneath the seat rail trims.
Start by removing the rear cover. It has just two clips and they're marked in the shot below. Just slip your fingers under and lift upwards.
This is what the clips look underneath:
And what they clip into:
Overview:
Once the back piece is off, the front piece simply slides forward off the rail.
There should however be a white clip that is at the rear end of the front piece. On both sides of my car this white clip was actually underneath the trim and sitting there in the metal. So, if yours is like mine, go ahead and un-clip it from the metal, slot it back into the trim piece and then clip it back in once you're done!
When re-fitting the rear part, it has this plastic guide that slides into the front piece.
B-Pillar
By far, the most difficult area to pull apart was the B-pillar. There are a lot of individual panels and some of them are a bastard to undo.
Start by undoing the grommet that bridges the door to the b-pillar. Note the one that goes into the door you can just squeeze together and pull it out.
However, the one that goes into the b-pillar is a prick and was really difficult to get out on my car. The rubber grommet wraps around a very tough plastic ring which has wing clips on each side. Use a thin flat head screw driver to push the wing clip in on one side and it should come out fairly easy after that.
The door loom is connected via the plug pictured below. Getting it out of the b-pillar can be tricky, just keep trying different angles. Once its out of the pillar, un-clip the plug.
This shot shows an overview of the cable feed. For testing I fed it through car -> door, but because I wanted to solder the speaker wires directly to the speaker terminals, I ended up doing that and then feeding the other end through the other way. Use a cable tie or something of similar size/hardness to feed it through the grommet and through the pillar.
Here are some front/back pictures of the panel pieces surrounding the B-Pillar...
Top piece, remove this one first. Easy to get your fingers behind once the rubber surround is pulled away. No screws, just 4 clips. Check the white clips are still on the panel and not left in the metal after removing.
Bottom pillar piece, remove this part last as it clips underneath the top piece and the kick panels. Two white clips at the top, use a flat head screwdriver to push the wing clips in as they might be caught in the metal. Two bottom clips clip downwards into the metal so basically pry the top white clips outwards and then lift the entire piece upwards to remove the bottom clips.
Rear kick panels, just two clips at the front and a hex screw at the back.
Front kick panels, no screws on this one, just a bunch of clips along the way which should come up with minimal effort. Note that you should/need to remove the front seat rail trim before removing this piece, as this clips underneath those panels.
Kick Panels
Lastly is the kick panels, where you're going to run the new speaker cable along from the b-pillar into the boot, where your amp is waiting.
Not a whole lot of info to add on this one. Just giving an overview of the underneath.
Its not necessary to remove the front side kick panel, the hex screw for it is marked in red. The green one you'll need to remove though, as that's the bottom piece on the b-pillar panel.
Here some additional shots of the b-pillar bottom piece area.
I also took the opportunity to give every panel that was taken out a proper wipe down, clean and armor all... came up pretty good considering the condition they came out in!
....
And that's about it! For those curious, I'm running a Rockford R500X1D which puts out 623wrms @ 2ohm. $220 from Ryda.com.
That's feeding a Hertz ES300 D.5 (4+4ohm) in a sealed box from Monster Car Audio for $250.
For the remote on I purchased one of these from jaycar for 10 bucks. Senses audio coming from the speaker cables and tells the amp to turn on, saves the hassle of wiring it up to the cigarette lighter, or moreso to the drivers door switch if you want it to truly turn on/off with the radio... PITA, no thanks!
I'm pretty happy with the system. Its a monstrous improvement over the standard 4 speakers (had already removed the dash speaker) and for pretty cheap and a day or two's work (depending how lazy you are! :yeah.
There are more pics available in the album: VESS_Amp_Install | Photobucket
Hope this is helpful to some! Cheers! :spot on:
So I finally got around to dumping the pics onto the PC from the install I did in the VE. Wanted to share the pics for anyone interested in doing the same. I had a bit of trouble with some panels because you simply don't know how much and where to put pressure to get some panels out in fear of breaking them, so its always nice to be able to see what's on the underside
I did mine slightly different from the norm in that I didn't splice the speaker wires from the back of the head unit, instead I took them from the rear door speakers directly. I figured it was easier to pull apart the rear half of the car instead of the entire car if I wanted to run new wires from the back of the dash. This also allowed me to do a bit better job being able to access everything to solder and tie off stuff, bit more difficult when stuck underneath the dash.
Door Trim
You probably want to start with the door trims. They're fairly easy to remove. 5 screws and a bunch of clips and you're good to go.
You may find some of the clips would prefer to let go of the trim than let go of the door. Easy enough to pry out with a pair of scissors slid about half way up the blade and then levering against the door.
These top clips were new for me. Every door trim I've removed have kind of just hung over than top lip and gripped on that way.
I had bugger all rope available with this plug so it can be a bit tricky to position yourself to hold the trim up off the ground and get your hand around to unplug this. Note that the release clip for this plug is actually on the difficult side, its not on the side that you can actually access.
These should be all of the clips and screws. Yellow is the hex screw. Red are the plug clips. Orange are the top clips. Blue are the screws. Bottom screws had a thicker head on them, not sure if that matters or not.
Rear Seat
After the rear door trims are off, take out the back seat, which is very simple. There are only 2 clips holding the ass-part of the rear seat in and they're on each side (not one in the middle). Get your finger in between the underside of the seat and run it along until you feel the metal part that goes into the clip (mounted in the floor of the car). Then, around that area, just lift straight upwards with a significant amount of oomph and it'll pop out.
This picture was taken before I changed my mind and fed the cable where the red line is marked. There's a couple of standard carpet clips holding that back panel which should be easy enough to find and take out. The amp is mounted directly to the sub box which sits behind the rear-middle seat so that's why I fed everything to that location.
As a side note, note where that black boot release cable is running? On the other side (and on the passenger side) of the slotted metal area is where I ran the positive battery cable. Its held up by cable ties, so that it wasn't lying on top of the other cables in order to reduce noise.
On the passenger side you can see the thick red battery cable which runs from the engine bay into the boot where the battery is mounted. Keep all audio cables away from this as much as possible.
Front Seat Rails
Though it may not seem necessary at first, removing the outside seat rail trims is necessary in order to remove the kick panels as the kick panels clip underneath the seat rail trims.
Start by removing the rear cover. It has just two clips and they're marked in the shot below. Just slip your fingers under and lift upwards.
This is what the clips look underneath:
And what they clip into:
Overview:
Once the back piece is off, the front piece simply slides forward off the rail.
There should however be a white clip that is at the rear end of the front piece. On both sides of my car this white clip was actually underneath the trim and sitting there in the metal. So, if yours is like mine, go ahead and un-clip it from the metal, slot it back into the trim piece and then clip it back in once you're done!
When re-fitting the rear part, it has this plastic guide that slides into the front piece.
B-Pillar
By far, the most difficult area to pull apart was the B-pillar. There are a lot of individual panels and some of them are a bastard to undo.
Start by undoing the grommet that bridges the door to the b-pillar. Note the one that goes into the door you can just squeeze together and pull it out.
However, the one that goes into the b-pillar is a prick and was really difficult to get out on my car. The rubber grommet wraps around a very tough plastic ring which has wing clips on each side. Use a thin flat head screw driver to push the wing clip in on one side and it should come out fairly easy after that.
The door loom is connected via the plug pictured below. Getting it out of the b-pillar can be tricky, just keep trying different angles. Once its out of the pillar, un-clip the plug.
This shot shows an overview of the cable feed. For testing I fed it through car -> door, but because I wanted to solder the speaker wires directly to the speaker terminals, I ended up doing that and then feeding the other end through the other way. Use a cable tie or something of similar size/hardness to feed it through the grommet and through the pillar.
Here are some front/back pictures of the panel pieces surrounding the B-Pillar...
Top piece, remove this one first. Easy to get your fingers behind once the rubber surround is pulled away. No screws, just 4 clips. Check the white clips are still on the panel and not left in the metal after removing.
Bottom pillar piece, remove this part last as it clips underneath the top piece and the kick panels. Two white clips at the top, use a flat head screwdriver to push the wing clips in as they might be caught in the metal. Two bottom clips clip downwards into the metal so basically pry the top white clips outwards and then lift the entire piece upwards to remove the bottom clips.
Rear kick panels, just two clips at the front and a hex screw at the back.
Front kick panels, no screws on this one, just a bunch of clips along the way which should come up with minimal effort. Note that you should/need to remove the front seat rail trim before removing this piece, as this clips underneath those panels.
Kick Panels
Lastly is the kick panels, where you're going to run the new speaker cable along from the b-pillar into the boot, where your amp is waiting.
Not a whole lot of info to add on this one. Just giving an overview of the underneath.
Its not necessary to remove the front side kick panel, the hex screw for it is marked in red. The green one you'll need to remove though, as that's the bottom piece on the b-pillar panel.
Here some additional shots of the b-pillar bottom piece area.
I also took the opportunity to give every panel that was taken out a proper wipe down, clean and armor all... came up pretty good considering the condition they came out in!
....
And that's about it! For those curious, I'm running a Rockford R500X1D which puts out 623wrms @ 2ohm. $220 from Ryda.com.
That's feeding a Hertz ES300 D.5 (4+4ohm) in a sealed box from Monster Car Audio for $250.
For the remote on I purchased one of these from jaycar for 10 bucks. Senses audio coming from the speaker cables and tells the amp to turn on, saves the hassle of wiring it up to the cigarette lighter, or moreso to the drivers door switch if you want it to truly turn on/off with the radio... PITA, no thanks!
I'm pretty happy with the system. Its a monstrous improvement over the standard 4 speakers (had already removed the dash speaker) and for pretty cheap and a day or two's work (depending how lazy you are! :yeah
.There are more pics available in the album: VESS_Amp_Install | Photobucket
Hope this is helpful to some! Cheers! :spot on:
