Overview:This is mainly to hide you radio and open up nother DIN slot for what ever you want. You could have the open box along with cup holders, or in my case stick a touch screen in the now open area. This will also hide your CD player from a thief’s view. The down side is unless you have a remote it will be in an out of reach area. I also plan to attempt to mold my remote into my center console, when I do this I should post up a write-up to go with that as well.*Note: I would highly recommend you do this glove box recovering DIY when doing this modification as you will need to drill the front of the glove box*
http://www.nicoclub.com/articles.php?id=167288
Difficulty: ***
Time: 3-5 hours
Cost: ~$30-$40 for hardware, wire and crimps.
Tools:- Philip screwdriver- Dremel with plastic cutting bit. - Small flat head screwdriver for changing out broken cutting disk.- I used the 420 Dremel cutting bit, however I ender up going through 18 of them in this process- Four flat head screws with nuts - Wire with appropriate coloring (I suggest either match the radio unit or nissan harnesses colors.)- Wire strippers- Wire cutters- Wire Crimpers- Crimp butts (you need two for every wire to extend it.)
Procedure:First off remove your glove box, the part that swivel has two screws holding it in. Unscrew the glove box and remove the glove box. Once you have done that detach the front from the back, there are quite a few you need to remove in order to detach the two parts. I would also peel off the front fabric at this point.Now you are ready!
Let’s mount up your radio to the existing brackets.
I realized when mounting the radio this way the holes running vertical are a little too wide apart, however I was still able to use them with my Sony CD player.
My Sony unit came with this holding unit incase your car didn’t have brackets to hold the CD player in with out screws. I used this in order to trace out the section I was going to cut.
Once traced it should look like this. This is the back of the glove box; your cd player will stick out of it.
Now get cutting!*Note I couldn’t find my Dremel tool, so I used a Milwaukee drill*
The hole! My job was a little rough and a bit rushed; I used a 420 Dremel cutting bit, and went through 16 of those suckers. In the end you can make this all nice but most likely I doubt people are going to stare at the back of your glove box. So take your time and it will look nicer than mine!
Test fit your radio. I wish I made it smaller here then the radio so I could go back and sand out everything, but in the end it works for me!
Time to mount that radio.Once you have it in the area where it will NOT obstruct the locking mechanism take what ever you have, in my case a sharpie, to mark the location of the holes with the glove box together.
Now take the back part off and re-align the bracket with the two holes you just filled in and mark the other set of holes:
Now drill the holes you marked, remember: measure twice cut once as this will be the final mounting position. My original holes where a bit too small so I ender up going back and redoing them.
Ok, now take the metal bracket which the glove box mounts to. It has four screws holding it in, the radio gets in the way of this bracket and you have to cut out a section of it in order for it to go up. Yes one of my screws was missing in that picture.
The Cd player will get in way of this bracket preventing normal operations of your glove box. Solution cut part of it out. Lay it over the glove box and mark what you need to cut out. You can sort of see the sharpie I only needed to cut out the section before the bend in it.
The nibbler in action! I prefer this guy over the Dremel as it won’t brake and I was low on cutting wheels at this point.
The now cut out bracket:
Once that is cut out, you need to add space where you have the harness and antenna will stick out.
Alright where not done with cutting yet. In order for the unit to fit you have to remove the light housing for the glove box.
The plastic light house has four little plastic clamps (?) which hold it in. Remove it.
Once removed you can either get creative with it or just cut it and tape off the ends.
It’s now gone! You can now either get creative with the glove box light or just cut it out and tape off the ends.*Note there are 3 screws holding this in, I ended up cutting with the nibbler with it still in the car. This third screw is hidden and heavily torqued, which ended up becoming stripped *
Time to mount the radio in the box! You can now re-install the bracket as we are done modifying it.
Aircraft hardware ftw!
These clamps w/nuts have a certain name I don’t remember right now I’ll get back on what they are called on Monday or so. They made my life a hell of lot easier as the nuts stayed in place. Such an awesome invention.
You can now mount the radio in the glove box. But you still need to do some work before you can hook everything up. At this point I would recommend covering you glove box.
You might need to extend your harness. I had my hands busy doing this so I don’t have pictures, however it shouldn’t be too difficult doing this as everything is matched for you if you have your radio already hooked up. Cut wires, splice them, and reconnect them with added piece using crimps. You radio harness should now come out of this area as well:
Now mount the radio in the glove box, don’t forget your lock either like I did! Re-install the glove box with the radio and you’re done!
Just a note my radio happen to rub against the heater core.I recommend you move your cd player as far forward as you can . I can still close it just has to be kind of force it. I’m sure custom brackets which are lower could easily solve this problem as well. You can also tell I have yet to cover my glove box and looks like complete crap right now.
Modified by RCG_Savage at 8:29 PM 11/4/2007
Modified by RCG_Savage at 8:33 PM 11/4/2007