5 posts tagged “beetle”
There it is, in all it's glorious glorious glory. All white and glowing and glorious and within easy reach. I could have mounted it in the cup to the left but then my right knee would be bumping it all the time. I usually keep it set to my top rated playlist on shuffle so there's not much need to fiddle.
One thing I noticed is that with this config I must keep the volume on the ipod cranked. If I turn the ipod volume down and crank the car volume up I can hear interference in the background whenever anything electrical happens in the car. Which probably means my ground setup isn't the best it could be.
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Here's what I did to install an rca/headphone jack connection in my '99 volkswagen beetle with cd changer so that I may enjoy the sweet, sweet sounds of my ipod without a lousy half-assed tape or fm connection. The job disconnects the line connection from your cd changer. You're not using it anymore anyway, so don't worry about it. First though, before you get going, my disclaimer. If you cock things up even just a little bit, it's not my fault. If it doesn't work or your car burns down or anything bad happens as a result of you doing this, it is not my fault, it is yours.
Here's the stuff I purchased at Best Buy (whom I hate. I hate Best Buy, they are useless. More on that in a later post). I went to the back of the store and got the cheapest versions of the following gear:
1x20' rca cable
1x6' rca to 3.25 stereo cable
2x rca cable extenders
1' of speaker cable (I didn't get this at Best Buy. If you're a real dork like me you'll have some laying around. If not, pick some up at the store)
You'll also need the following:
1x roll of electrical tape
1 wire splicer (or scissors if you've got very mad skills)
You might need a Torx screwdriver. I don't remember what size. Just go get a small set if you don't have them already.
Step 1
Crawl into the back of the Beetle and facing the cd changer, look down from above. Between the cd changer and the side of the car there's two wiring harnesses connected together. Disconnect the one toward the front of the car.
Step 2
Peel back a bit of the electrical tape from the wire harness. Find the white and purple cables. Cut each cable making sure you leave enough room between the cable and the harness for reconnecting your cd changer down the road (because your wife is concerned about such things, like mine is, even though I haven't listened to a cd in the car in years now). Strip a bit of the insulation off the white and purple cables.
Step 3
This really is the tricky part. Cut the red and black connector off one end of your 20' rca cable. As you strip the outer cover off the cable, inside you'll find a colored piece of cable (the red connector side will have a red plastic jacket on the inside, black connector side has a black jacket on the inside) along with a loose piece of unjacketed copper. Splice the unjacketed bit of copper on each cable to your 1' piece of speaker cable. Splice the red piece of cable to the purple cable from step 2, splice the black piece of cable to the white cable from step 2. I used copious amounts of electrical tape to wrap all my splices. You might use fancy twisty things or connectors, use whatever you think is best or feel comfortable using.
Step 4
Here's a very important step. Reconnect the wiring harness to the cd changer connector. I tried this rig out without doing this and the stereo head unit said "no changer", blinked a few times, then flipped back to the radio. Also, put an old cd into the changer. My rig won't work without a cd in there. I'll be working on a hack to this and will keep you posted.
Step 5
As you sit directly in front of the cd changer looking down from above (like the technical god that you are), there's a small bolt on the top of the changer on the left and right side. I picked the one on the left toward the back of the car. Loosen up the bolt from the top. Attach both pieces of speaker cable (it is now your ground cable) to this bolt, then tighten the bolt. Tuck the extra cable behind the cd player.
Step 6
At this point you'll want to test your new rig. Go ahead and connect the rca cable to the rca 3/4" cable via the rca cable connectors. Connect the 3/4" jack to your ipod. Turn on your stereo, hit the CD button. Hit play on a track and you should be in business. If the volume is too low, go ahead and crank the volume on your ipod. There's an alternate way of hooking up your ipod using one of these cables:
it is called an "RCA to dock cable". You can find a few on Amazon by searching for "ipod rca cable". There's a few out there, the one pictured is by Cables to Go. There's another one by NYKO, same cable, $9 but I hear they charge a lot for shipping. The nice thing about using this sort of cable is that while it will not charge your ipod in the car, it'll use the line out signal from your ipod. You'll control the volume of the ipod from the car stereo and I believe it'll save a bit of battery life on the ipod.
If it doesn't work, you suck. Make sure you connected everything correctly. If it kind of works but sounds really bad then you didn't properly connect the ground wires. Not grounding the rig will cause all kinds of line noise. You'll know it's this if you partially connect the rca cable to the ipod cable (push the connectors in half way), suddenly it'll sound good. You don't want that, you want all your cables nice and tight and proper. Go check your work and stop with the half assed "get it done quick and sloppy" attitude that has been holding you back all your life. You'll never get chicks that way.
Step 7
Now that everything is working (and your life is in order), by whatever means you see fit, go ahead and string that cable to the front of your car to where your ipod will be mounted. I recommend putting the end of the cable where you want it eventually to be then working backwards from there, leaving the slack under the back seat. I have just the very end of my cable coming up from the front end of the middle console under the dash forward of the three cupholders. I unscrewed the middle console with a torx screwdriver and tucked the cable inside making sure I didn't interfere with the shifter, emergency brake, or center power connector. I then tucked the remaining slack underneath the back seat.
Step 8
Install one of these in one of the three open cupholders:
The Belkin TuneDok comes with a variety of bottom cupholder adapters designed to fit into any situation. Think about it, the cupholders in cars are designed to be within easy reach of the driver. A car cupholder is the perfect place to mount an ipod. These things are very well built, hold the ipod securely, and have an opening at the bottom for a charger connector or that rca to dock connector. I had one of these that I used with my 3G ipod that even fit while in a Vaja case.
That should be it. You're all set. Rock on there with your bad self. Don't you feel so much better that you only spent around $42 bones to do it yourself?
Q&A
"But Art, I won't be able to control my ipod from my stereo, right?"
That is correct, Grasshopper. There's stuff out there that will do this with some cars but only in a halfway decent way with aftermarket stereos. I'm installing this on my factory stereo. There's a VW iPod kit that you can have put in but folks seem pretty disappointed by it. You have to setup playlists on the ipod then scroll through them using the presets on the stereo, and they wire your connector into your glovebox. It's a whole half-assed rig that will cost way too much and it's a pain in the ass to use. This way is the best way.
"But damnit I won't be able to see the song names and other fancy crap on my stereo if I do it this way, right?"
Right. No other fancy connectors out there will let you do this either, so why bother? You can always just look at your iPod screen anyway. But really you should keep your eyes on the damned road and not be looking at song names and fancy schmancy album art. What's wrong with you anyhow? Eyes up, hands at 10 and 2 soldier!
"This won't charge my ipod too, will it?"
No it will not. One thing you could do is use the headphone connector then get a dock to cigarette lighter cable for long trips. If your iPod runs out of juice on the way to work it could mean one of a few things. It could be time for a new iPod battery, or time for a new job closer to home.
"What iPods will this work with?"
Any ipod with a headphone jack. Which means all of them.
"Can I use this with other stuff besides an iPod?"
Anything with a headphone jack.
"I don't own a Volkswagen Beetle, how do I do this with my car?"
Well, I don't know really. Depends on your car and your stereo and whether you have a cd changer or not. You might want to check your owners manual to see if you've got an aux out somewhere built in. Or maybe you've got an aux out headphone jack sticking out of the front of your stereo. Google that shizz, see what comes up, and good luck.
Thats right, I'm on the cusp of officially embracing my dadness.
My precious 1993 Jeep Cherokee will be anihiliated. It will be purchased by the U.S. Military and shipped to Iraq where it will be used for VBIED testing. Kind of cool. I only wish I could be there to see it blown to hell and gone.
As for myself, I'll trade up with Wife and once again drive the beetle to work.
What have I become?
