Mkydsm's New Member/Build Thread (CO)

[mkydsm]

Hi all, happy to be a part of a new community!

Long time Subie owner -- the Forester was nice, but couldn't handle jeep trails and was not very comfortable. The wife didn't like the size of the Landcruiser, and they are absurdly expensive here unless you buy a sketchy one. So we did some research and decided the GX would be the best fit for the money here in CO. Took a $40 flight out to Salt Lake City to pick this beauty up, and drove her back to Denver. 2006, dealer maintained, 94k miles, non-nav, no white paint flaking (yet), and has brand new 265/65 BFG K02s (thank you prior owner). Exterior/interior is in near perfect condition.

I figured I would combine my new member post and "build thread" into this, even though it will probably start off as just a "maintenance" thread.

Short term plans:

• Surface rust remediation - GX spent a few years in NY after living in FL for most of its life. As expected, a small amount of surface rust had accumulated underneath. I have already hit most of it with the wire brush on a drill, and most of it came off. Will be undercoating it this week, evaluating products.
• Timing belt/water pump service - dealer gave us a $500 credit for it not being done yet.
• An axle boot clamp appears loose, will evaluate both for possible re-boot or replacement.
• Replace factory head-unit, add back up camera. Priority #1 for the wife, have ordered all parts and a Pioneer AVIC w8400NEX unit.
• Retrofit source H11 HIDs - 5500k, ordered along with LED fogs and interior LEDs.

 

[mkydsm]

Pioneer AVIC w8400nex came in, along with an Alpine HCE C1100 back up camera.

Hoping for a smooth install tomorrow, will update.

 

[Infinity00]

Are you replacing the levinson stereo?

 

[mkydsm]

Are you replacing the levinson stereo?

Negative, non navigation/non levinson model. So I think it's a bit more straightforward.

 

[Infinity00]

That looks like a sweet setup

 

[mkydsm]

Took a good day and a half, but the new headunit and camera are installed.

First I mounted the camera underneath the rear trim. You have to drill trough the plastic and the metal to the rear hatch.

Thats the easy part, then you have to run the camera output to the headunit area. The trickiest part is getting it through the rear hatch grommet. It compresses pretty well, so you can kind of mush it together and pull the lead through.

Then just run along the passenger side door sills.

To start the headunit, take off all the trim around the radio edges, and take off the cig lighter area. Pretty straightforward, just use a trim tool and disconnect all the electrical plugs. Then unscrew the bolts holding the radio/heater controls/clock in. Also undo the the main harness connector bolt. The unit should then pop out.

Took it inside for surgery

Separate the clock and heater from the radio to remove it. The clips are a little tricky. Then do the reverse to install the new trim peice and radio. I used the DKMUS trim from Amazon, $20. The color isn't exact, but it fits well enough.

 

[mkydsm]

I used the TYTO harness to keep the factory amp, which worked great. I used the ASWC steering wheel interface too, but my controls do not work. I'll have to dig back in later to resolve this.

Back to car to run the rest of the wiring. The navigation, and microphone were pretty straightforward. Finding the speed sense wire and reverse signal wire were a PITA. The speed sense wire is located on the ECU behind the glove box.

Car in peices at this point

For the reverse wire, every source says to use the red/black wire running from the passenger glovebox. The problem is there are 4 red/black wires running to the back. After digging around for a while I found a post on here that identified a source on the drivers side kick panel. This top red/black wire on the large connector (connected to a blue box). It worked perfectly and saved the day.

 

[mkydsm]

Buttoned everything back up, and fired her up.

Back up camera:

Only thing left to do now is figure out the steering control issue, and add a second USB.

Fun stuff, cheers!

 

[4Point7Lucky]

Looks very nice and clean. For SWC I have used(Not necessarily in the GX Though, as I have ML/Nav) Metra Axxess, and PAC SWI-RC ... May want to check into these.

 

[mkydsm]

Looks very nice and clean. For SWC I have used(Not necessarily in the GX Though, as I have ML/Nav) Metra Axxess, and PAC SWI-RC ... May want to check into these.

Yeah - I ordered the Metra 70-8114, hopefully I can get the Aswc-1 to work with that.

 

[mkydsm]

Today I installed the Morimoto H11 Elite HID system, from The Retrofit Source. I've had good luck with them on my Subaru's, everything is always neat, plug and play, and works as it should. The GX had tons of space to mount the relay harness and ballasts.

Finally looking like a Lexus! I chose 6500k bulbs, and they have a very slight blue tinge. I am going to refinish and clear the lenses this weekend.

 

[mkydsm]

For anyone wondering about the steering wheel controls, turns out I just needed to reset the ASWC unit. I had just crammed it in there assuming it would work, which was not the case.

My advice would be to fire it up somewhere visible to test/reset it first.

 

[mkydsm]

A few Sunday funday projects.

Decided to tackle restoring the headlights.

All clear

Did the fogs too.

Did some scrubbing with the wire brush and coated the underneath with 3M rubberized undercoat.

Also installed some Rad Rubber Designs engine liners, solid product.

 

[captainva]

Today I installed the Morimoto H11 Elite HID system, from The Retrofit Source. I've had good luck with them on my Subaru's, everything is always neat, plug and play, and works as it should. The GX had tons of space to mount the relay harness and ballasts.

Finally looking like a Lexus! I chose 6500k bulbs, and they have a very slight blue tinge. I am going to refinish and clear the lenses this weekend.

Any more pics of where you mounted the ballasts for the HIDs and of output light for the headlights and fogs? This is exactly the route I was planning for a light upgrade and I'd love to see how it all turned out

 

[mkydsm]

Any more pics of where you mounted the ballasts for the HIDs and of output light for the headlights and fogs? This is exactly the route I was planning for a light upgrade and I'd love to see how it all turned out

Here is a pic of where I mounted the relays, I didn't take pics of where the ballasts are. But there is a bunch of space right behind each headlight to strap or mount them too.

Here are some more pics trying to show the output. The HIDs are way brighter than the stock halogens. The yellow led fogs are maybe a little brighter than stock, but I would really love them to be brighter for snow. Maybe I would add hid fogs later down the line.

Pics

 

[mkydsm]

 

[captainva]

That looks awesome and exactly what I'm going for. Do you have a yellow film over the fog lights of did you get yellow bulbs?

 

[mkydsm]

That looks awesome and exactly what I'm going for. Do you have a yellow film over the fog lights of did you get yellow bulbs?

Yellow LED bulbs, these ones from Amazon.

 

[captainva]

Awesome thank you!

 

[subspd]

Welcome and great start!