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This is what I got from Radios and More. I highly recommend this company. For $360, I got the 12 disk changer, cartridge, harness, and brackets. They have a 30-day return policy and to top it off, they will ship your order to you next day air, no charge, if your order is over $100. I placed my order at 8:00 am Hawaii time and received it at 11:00 am the next day. I have NEVER received anything that quickly.
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The first thing to do is disconnect the negative terminal of the battery. Then locate the CD Changer connector. It can be found in the trunk on the passenger's side under the trunk liner. See the see the How-To page on the CD Changer & Sunroof connectors if you want more info.
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When you pull back the top of the trunk liner, you will see the connector. Carefully remove the tape that holds the end of the CD changer harness to the lighting harness. Try not to put too much stress on the harness when you do this.
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Here is the changer harness after it has been pulled out. If you do not have the harness in your car, you will need to install the harness that is provided with the kit. If you want to retain OnStar, you will have to remove a few pins out of the old connector and insert them into the new one. Radios and More can help you with this.
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The harness in the trunk is only partially connected to the system. To complete it, you need to put two connectors together. It is behind the right close out panel beneath the glove compartment. See the How-To article on the aux power connector for instructions on how to gain access to this area.
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The connector is hidden behind the carpet. Connector 1 leads to the CD changer plug in the trunk. Connector 2 leads to the radio. Carefully remove the tape holding the connectors to the harness and plug them together.
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On both sides of the changer are keyholes that you set to reflect the orientation of the changer after it is installed. Make sure it is set to H (Horizontal). That is usually the factory default.
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Install the brackets onto the changer with the provided screws. These look like universal brackets and Radios and More had already modified them so that the mounting holes on the changer matched up with holes in the brackets. They even marked them right and left.
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Here is what it looks like with both brackets installed.
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To make installation a little easier, make a template. Place the changer upsidedown on a piece of cardboard and trace around the brackets and the mounting holes. I used a manilla folder. Trim the template a bit to make it managable. Don't forget to mark which way is the front of the changer.
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Ok, now you can stick the template to the bottom of the package shelf and move it around. Beats trying to hold the changer with the brackets mounted to it in place AND mark drill holes. I can't give you an exact position. There is no flat area to mount the changer. What I ended up doing is positioning the changer so that I could hang it from four points, even though these points were at different hights. You will see what I mean later. Keep in mind that you don't have to use the pre-drilled holes in the brackets. I redrilled some of the holes in the bracket so it would match up to the location I wanted the bolt to be.
- Don't forget that the the harness will still have to reach the changer. After you think you have a good position, connect the harness to the changer and see if it will fit where you want it to.
- Watch out where you drill the holes. Check what is behind the area you want to drill the hole. A great mounting point ended up being the gutter around the trunk opening.
The existing holes in the brackets fit a 1/4" bolt. Luckily I had some on hand. While the template will help you, it's not perfect. What I recommend is drill one hole, bolt the changer up, then mark the next hole to drill. Remove the changer, drill that hole, bolt the changer to the two holes, mark the next hole, and so on.
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After you get all the holes drilled, you can use shims or washers to level the unit. I had mentioned in the step above that the mounting points were at different levels. This is how I corrected for it. The arrow points to five washers that I used to level the unit right to left. My torpedo level has a magnet on one side and that feature has helped me with more projects than I care to remember.
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Then I leveled it from front to back. You can even see the bubble in this photo. I only mounted the changer from three points. The fourth point required a longer bolt than what I had on hand. Actually, the three are pretty solid so I may just leave it at that.
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This is what the final installation looks like. Later on I will change out the bolts for shorter ones so they don't stick out as far. Now plug the harness into the changer (it reaches, right?). Check all your electrical connections then re-attach the battery. When you open the door, the white light under the opening should come on. Load up some CDs into the cartridge, load it into the changer, and close the door.
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Turn on your car and turn on the radio. You should see a symbol that looks like a stack of 4 CDs flashing (see arrow). Press the CD button on your radio. If you have a CD equipped head unit, you may have to press the button twice. You may see the message "LOADING" or you will see something that looks like this photo. D1 T1 means disk 1, track 1. If you have steering wheel controls, the SEEK button changes tracks and the PRESET button changes disks.
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