I've never done anything extravagant to my car audio by myself. Everything that I've ever had done to my car has nearly always been professional, minus adding some cheap speakers.
I purchased a 1996 Civic halfway through last year, and the car audio in the thing would sound better without anything in it at all. It was bad. Blown out 22 year old paper speakers. Speakers that came stock in a Civic, nonetheless.
I decided that this car's audio needed a serious upgrade, especially since I've grown to love this car. I love working on cars, so I did a ton of research and decided to do it all myself, no shops.
I wanted to run a double din. Something that could do video playback, run a backup camera, and most of all supported apple play. I bought a Pioneer MVH-2300NEX. Problem with this is, the 96-98 Civic only came with a single din slot for the radio. The 99-00 Civics came with a double din and it seemed like a simple swap to drop in the 99-00 radio bezel. Turns out there was a lot more to it than that.
I couldn't just swap in the radio bezel because it had nothing to mount to on the 96 dash frame. Turns out that the metal frame of the dash was different between the 96-98 civics and the 99-00 civics. Problem number two was that the climate controls in the 99-00 were motorized, whereas mine were manually actuated, so I had to switch out all of my climate control boxes and blower motor. Figured I'd redo the seals and clean them and the vents while I was at it so I had a nice, clean, non-smelly HVAC system.
The bezel on top of the dash is what was in the car. The one in the dash is what I swapped in.
Dash and climate control things in the process of being cleaned and reassembled.
More dash and climate control things in the process of being cleaned and reassembled. You can see my carpet in the background drying. I decided to dye it charcoal gray while I had it out of the car so I could get rid of all of the stains.
New HVAC boxes installed, freshly cleaned and resealed.
Got everything back together, only to find out that I bought a harness adapter for a 99 civic. I kept my 96 civic dash harness for simplicities sake, so it wouldn't quite fit. Had to wait until I got off work to wire in the new adapter.
Finally got it wired up and working. Looks like it belongs there.
Got the backup camera wired up right. This is before I mounted it.
I purchased a 1996 Civic halfway through last year, and the car audio in the thing would sound better without anything in it at all. It was bad. Blown out 22 year old paper speakers. Speakers that came stock in a Civic, nonetheless.
I decided that this car's audio needed a serious upgrade, especially since I've grown to love this car. I love working on cars, so I did a ton of research and decided to do it all myself, no shops.
I wanted to run a double din. Something that could do video playback, run a backup camera, and most of all supported apple play. I bought a Pioneer MVH-2300NEX. Problem with this is, the 96-98 Civic only came with a single din slot for the radio. The 99-00 Civics came with a double din and it seemed like a simple swap to drop in the 99-00 radio bezel. Turns out there was a lot more to it than that.
I couldn't just swap in the radio bezel because it had nothing to mount to on the 96 dash frame. Turns out that the metal frame of the dash was different between the 96-98 civics and the 99-00 civics. Problem number two was that the climate controls in the 99-00 were motorized, whereas mine were manually actuated, so I had to switch out all of my climate control boxes and blower motor. Figured I'd redo the seals and clean them and the vents while I was at it so I had a nice, clean, non-smelly HVAC system.
The bezel on top of the dash is what was in the car. The one in the dash is what I swapped in.
Dash and climate control things in the process of being cleaned and reassembled.
More dash and climate control things in the process of being cleaned and reassembled. You can see my carpet in the background drying. I decided to dye it charcoal gray while I had it out of the car so I could get rid of all of the stains.
New HVAC boxes installed, freshly cleaned and resealed.
Got everything back together, only to find out that I bought a harness adapter for a 99 civic. I kept my 96 civic dash harness for simplicities sake, so it wouldn't quite fit. Had to wait until I got off work to wire in the new adapter.
Finally got it wired up and working. Looks like it belongs there.
Got the backup camera wired up right. This is before I mounted it.
