Pre-03 nav delete how-to (6 Viewers)

[chogunn]

I am gearing up for this mod as a PM (nav screen still working) . I have the controller but the eBay seller did not include the wire pigtails. Went back to the seller and asked for them and was willing to pay more for them but to no avail.
Does anyone out there know of a source or have a set for sale? I’m dead in the water until I get the pigtails.

I used the interior image search on Car-Part.com for the AC/Heat Selector and found dozens of options listed. When I called a local wrecking yard on that list they said they had the selector but the wiring had already been snipped out and sold, so at least some junk yards will do this. They told me that cutting wires is a $50 fee. I didn't want to make a bunch of phone calls so I copy/pasted what I was looking for into an email, sent it to a half dozen junk yards from Car-Part.com, and found a place in Utah that had the heat selector cheap and included the wiring for no extra. YMMV, but I recommend using that search tool to track down your harness. Good luck!

 

[chogunn]

You were dead on. They weren't making good contact so was necessary to push the buttons WAY harder than you'd think. After swapping a friend's knobbed unit in mine and the LX controls in his proved my wiring was good. I may try to fix the buttons in the future but honestly I rarely do anything but leave it on auto and turn off the AC in the winter. Then hit auto so the ac turns back on in warmer weather.

Thanks very much to all who figured all of the wiring out. It's a lot of connections but it works! To anyone that's going to do this I'll reiterate what others have said: Take your time and do one wire cut/solder at a time and you'll be fine.

I had a loose knob on my unit so I ended up taking the whole thing apart - I am nervous that I may have injured the delicate inner wiring and circuitry but I tried to be very careful. Everything is accessible including the backs of the buttons - the mechanisms, and I think you could add a thin spacer - maybe even just a piece of thick tape or foam there - to reduce the button travel. I had to use a bit of force to pry loose the wiring connectors inside, they were pretty set after nearly 20years of being in place. Turns out that I needed to fix the knob from the outside, so the adventure into the inner electronics was unnecessary. YOLO!

The right hand knob was very loose/wiggly and wouldn't seem to pry free. I used a thin blade to force it off, and there is a small nut underneath that tightens the whole mechanism to the frame. The recessed area was dusty so I cleaned it, replaced the knob, and it was fixed. This fix is obvious to me now that I have looked inside, but for some reason I was convinced that the knob was fastened from the inside.

 

[TXSunDevil]

Can someone spell something out really clearly for me? Like they say on Reddit, Explain Like I'm 5...

I've got a 2002 LX470 with Nav and Mark Levinson sound.
I purchased a 3 knob controller from a 98 land cruiser. The Temp & AC wiring conversion seem pretty straightforward and well documented. I want to install a nice modern head unit with CarPlay, but I don't want to replace the amp or any speakers. I just refoamed all the speakers and subs, and everything sounds good enough for me. I'm listening to sports radio or audiobooks 75% of the time.

There's the setup - here's the question - does the Metra 70-8113 connect my new head unit (HU has RCA outs) to my existing amp in a way that means sound will spring forth out of my speakers and sub? Without any additional wiring etc...?

Thanks for the help - I'm excited to do this but my facilities in electronics and engineering are so limited (I'm an educator, you know what they say...) that if I get into a fuzzy situation I'm likely to be driving around in a car without heat, fan, AC, or sound until I can afford to fly one of you experts up here to the Pacific NW.

Did you ever do this install? Any issues with the ML system and the 70-8113 Metra?

 

[chogunn]

Did you ever do this install? Any issues with the ML system and the 70-8113 Metra?

Not yet - the last parts (parking brake bypass, T-Tap connector kit, RCA extension cord) showed up yesterday from Amazon. I just need to get a heat gun or something for the solder seal connectors.

I'm nervous but think I will be able to work on it this weekend. I don't have a garage so I'm trying to figure out if I work after the kids go to bed in my drive, or try and take over my parents garage for the night. I also want to make sure I have a backup plan in case my head unit does not work with factory amp easily. So my backup plan is to bypass the factory harness - somehow - and see if the new HU will drive my repaired ML speakers until I replace those. If I do that, I'll just use the new HU to power four speakers and skip having a sub.

 

[TXSunDevil]

Be careful with a heat gun. It is tight in there and you can easily burn other connections. I used a small butane lighter. If your head unit doesn't work with the amp you can just grab the speaker wires from the amp output and wire into your head unit. You may have the impedance on the speaker and HU off but I am not a big enough audiophile to know if that makes a difference.

 

[chogunn]

Be careful with a heat gun. It is tight in there and you can easily burn other connections. I used a small butane lighter. If your head unit doesn't work with the amp you can just grab the speaker wires from the amp output and wire into your head unit.

That's the backup plan exactly, just use the wires in place.

Like a cigarette lighter? Or mini torch type thing? I wondered about a heat gun blasting all over the place ruining other connections.

 

[TXSunDevil]

Here is what I used. $11 on Amazon. I think any small lighter available at many gas stations will work. I thought the old school BIC lighters would probably take too long to heat up.

 

[erwall]

I wondered about a heat gun blasting all over the place ruining other connections.

I got one of these, helped me not burn stuff when I did mine.

 

[chogunn]

Thanks for the suggestions - I ordered a pencil torch and will see how it works. The heat gun guard is a great idea too, you can find anything on Amazon!

 

[Chris Reiblein]

I used the interior image search on Car-Part.com for the AC/Heat Selector and found dozens of options listed. When I called a local wrecking yard on that list they said they had the selector but the wiring had already been snipped out and sold, so at least some junk yards will do this. They told me that cutting wires is a $50 fee. I didn't want to make a bunch of phone calls so I copy/pasted what I was looking for into an email, sent it to a half dozen junk yards from Car-Part.com, and found a place in Utah that had the heat selector cheap and included the wiring for no extra. YMMV, but I recommend using that search tool to track down your harness. Good luck!

Thanks great advice I already have some replies.

 

[chogunn]

Okay things are looking good. The climate control is working and that’s where I’m going to leave it tonight. Some of the interior lights in it aren’t working so I need to figure out replacement bulbs. I know they can be removed because I’ve taken one out already.

Any quick ideas on why the antenna doesn’t go up or down yet? I haven’t hooked up audio, maybe that is why. Everything else seems to work except for the bulb.

Not super impressed with the fit of the LC knob dial. Seems a bit loose in the opening.

This was a pain. About 4 hours. I hate fiddly things like this. I’m all thumbs. I ran out of the right size solder seals so it took me longer to make the others work.

 

[erwall]

Any quick ideas on why the antenna doesn’t go up or down yet? I haven’t hooked up audio, maybe that is why. Everything else seems to work except for the bulb.

Mine wouldn't work until I installed a radio so you're probably fine.

 

[chogunn]

The rca cable connectors (x4) front left, front right, rear left, rear right) on the Metra stereo wiring harness are connected to the pre-outs (front and rear) on my Alpine unit. There are no traditional speaker wires on the Metra adapter so I assumed this was the only way to do it. I'm going to have an audio shop take a stab at it this afternoon, might just say **** it and have them bypass the amp and put in better speakers.

What did you determine here? I am in the same boat same setup and no audio signal. Everything else works. Wondering if I need to snip the speaker +/- at the dash connector and direct wire to the head unit and not use the rca plugs.

Any other ideas?

Just to answer my own question - I was never able to get the ML amp to acknowledge the signal from the Sony head unit. Tried various wires. Maybe there’s a way to make it work, but I’m not aware of anyone figuring it out.

 

[chogunn]

Yep. For testing purposes I had the aftermarket HU hooked up to the factory amp using Metra RCAs, but when I pulled the factory amp I ran new RCAs from HU to amp.

It sounds like I am hooked up the same as you, except your sound worked and mine didn’t. Do you remember how you hooked up the Metra harness? Did you have to do anything at the amp end with the setup you are describing here? I must have something miswired... I wonder if I wired in something that I shouldn’t have from the Metra harness.

Answering my own question - this didn’t work because of the Mark Levinson amp; but it seems like the harness has worked for others without the ML factory amp.

 

[chogunn]

Really sorry for the spam here but I feel like I’m so close to figuring this out. In the wiring diagram TXSun posted earlier the Orange wire on the Radio connector is listed as “mute”. On my harness it is dimmer/illumination. I connected it even though it wasn’t on my directions. I guess it’s just one snip to find out.

Edit - Nope! I was wrong. That didn’t do anything.

 

[fblainen11]

Check and recheck your harness.
It should work if everything is connected correctly.

 

[chogunn]

Check and recheck your harness.
It should work if everything is connected correctly.

Thanks for the encouragement but I think one key difference between it not working for me and it worked for you - you had the JBL amp (Do you have a Land Cruiser w/Nav?), I saw from your classifieds post that your head unit didn't have the ML branding and your amp is a different brand..h
I called Crutchfields and we worked the problem for a while but no solution. Everything *works* there is just no audio. Seems like my amp just won't "turn on" which sounds similar to what else I have read here. So I ordered the 9wire bundle and am going to just run my speakers from the HU, maybe add one of those under seat powered subwoofers in the future.

 

[fblainen11]

Just remove factory amp. Get a 4 or 5 channel amp, run RCAs from HU to underseat, then use existing speaker wire to power amp.

Much easier than running new speaker wire and your existing wire will be fine for most entry level powered amps.

 

[chogunn]

Yah I'm only going to run wire from the head unit to the amp area, then i'll yank that amp and power speakers from there. Only going to consider an aftermarket amp if the sound is garbage. I just repaired the stock speakers, I really don't want to take the doors apart again

 

[TXSunDevil]

Please keep us posted on this so we can clarify for those who will come after you. It looks like the ML amp will need to be removed with this conversion. I don't recall if anyone did the swap and retained all of the ML amp and speakers.