how to install a sound system

[Watchdogg]

This is a how to guide to install a typical sound system in your dual cab D22 Navara.

First off the sound system that I was installing consisted of:

2 x 6 inch speakers
2 x 4 inch speakers
Sony head unit with 3 RCA ports (only needed 2)
Cadence amplifier
SWS 10 Inch Subwoofer

I installed the 2 back speakers from the amp as well as the sub. the front speakers are ran off the head unit.

Tools you will need:

Pliers
drill with phillips bit
stanley knife
offset tin snips or small keyhole saw or whateva is good at cutting holes
Small flat head screwdriver
big phillips head screwdriver
small phillips head screwdriver
socket set (in case you screw up the head of the screws they can be removed with socket set

materials:
2 Blue RCA leads
1 Red power lead (think mine was a 5 metre lead)
1 red power fuse holder
1 fuse
1 remote wire (should be inbuilt on one of your rca leads)
1 earth wire
2 "long" speaker wires with plugs already on them
1 subwoofer wire
cable ties (only need about 20 will do)
self tapping screws
mini little wood screws

PREPARING THE INSTALL

1. Centre Console
Okay now you need to remove a fair few things. First of all, you'll want to remove the centre console. How you do that is open the centre console. At the bottom inside it, are 2 screws. remove them. Once done so you need to remove the coin tray or whateva that thing is lol. to do that, closest to handbrake of the coin tray stick a flat head screw driver under it and lever it up, and it should pop off. could even use your hands. Under the tray are 2 more screws remove them. Now you just need to lift the console up from the back, pull it back towards the back of the car as there are 2 tabs conecting it to the shroud around the gear sticks, and then just lift up and around the gear stick and it should come off.

2. Gear lever shroud
To remove this is simple. There are 4 Screws 2 on each side its not rocket science you will see this remove them and it will come off. Also the vinyl around the gear sticks to get that off the shroud just pull it towards the sticks and it will flex off, they are just clipped in. i removed it, but you don't have to. Then just pull it up out of your way. (dont need to take it off, just leave it handing there on top of gear sticks)
Also there is another little shroud between that one and the centre dash face. 2 screws to remove shown in diagram.

3. Centre of dash face
Okay this is easier then it looks. All you need to do is remove 2 screws shown in the picture. At the bottom of the face there are 2 tabs that hold it in place. what you need to do is get that small flat head screw driver and jam it under the dash face and lever the screw driver down to pop the face off at the bottom. once its popped out just proceed to pop off the rest starting at bottom and work way to top. its all little clips. be sure to keep a watchful eye as they like to fall off the face and disappear in the car somewhere. Then take out your head unit. its 4 screws. then the clip at the back just cut the wires as you will have a new wiring harness with your new head unit


4: Side trims
Get your little phillips head and undo the black trims (black strips that between door and carpet. you will see the screws. put ur finger under them and don't pull to hard that is the trick and the screws will come out. then just pull them up and off they come. do that for all of them. Also remove the panel that is next to the drivers pedal to the right. its one screw and it has a pop in clip at the top of it so just give it a yank.

5. Seat belt covers
There are 2 screws at the bottom of each one. remove them. then remove the seals off either side. shown on picture. then starting from the bottom pull it off, as its clipped in. I used a big flat head and jammed it out around each clip to be safe. still managed to break one by accident so be careful.

6. Door trims
For back door remove the little clip in thing wateva its called from around the door lock. it just pops off, shit im bad with names haha. remove the 2 screws from the door handle. for front doors 3 extra screws refer to drawings. all you need to do once screws are remove is starting from bottom grab the door trim with your fingers and pop it off clip by clip till you get to the top. once its all popped lift up the trip then it will come off. then you need to disconnect the power window clip. this is done by pushing down really hard on that little tab in the middle of the clip and pulling the clip apart.

 

[Watchdogg]

7. Back Seat Bottom half
To remove, there are 2 screws either end towards the front of the seat but right at the bottom near the floor. remove them and the seat will come out


INSTALLATION

Now that you have everything removed its time to install.

1. RCA Leads
Run the blue rca leads through the middle of the car. they run from the back of the head unit to the amp. poke them through the bottom of the centre face up and around the side of it through to back behind the head unit. your remote wire should be on one of the leads. don't run it directly in the middle of the face as you'll be blocking your air vents!! Run it on one side of your gear stick or through the middle whichever you prefer, then through the carpet stick to drivers side of centre console then through the back carpet through the middle still to behind the back seat. Job done. Some might disagree with me preferring to stick to one side of the car, but I believe this is the easiest method and should someone some how manage to damage my leads which i think would never happen but if it did whoopy do ill run new ones

2. Red power cable
In the engine bay there is a grommet on the drivers side, check the picture. there you need to feed the red lead through and all of the slack just enough so it can reach your battery to connect to. there you need to cut it near the battery and install your fuse box. don't put the fuse in yet! then you need to run the red cable from the grommet inside tucked up under your dash around to drivers side of trim behind that panel that you removed earlier then under the carpet on side of car going all the way back to behind the back seat.

3. Back speaker wiring
Be warned. this is a nightmare! You need to remove the 2 grommets. 1 from the door and the other from where it enters the car. pull them both out. now there is slack from the one from the car, but to get slack from the door one u need to pop off a couple of clips where its connected to the door. Then starting from inside the door where you speaker is going to be (which is where the ash tray is) feed the wire through the hole of the door then through the grommet. to get through grommet make a small slit in the rubber with the stanley knife and feed the wire through. then feed it through the other one doing the same with the knife, then through the hole in the car, come through where the white plastic cover thing is, which i just ripped off anyway. down to the bottom of the car back up the side to the back of the back seat. I cable tied the wire onto the other wires in several spots.

 

[Watchdogg]

4. Installing speakers into doors
The front doors are easy. the 6 inch speakers can be screwed into the orignal speaker holders. no worries there. don't forget to connect them to the wires which are already there stock standard.

The back speakers require bit of mucking around. basically i got the 4 inch speakers and put them where the ash tray is, i didn't need a plate as they were perfect enough to screw straight into the door with the self tapping screws with the drill. When I went to put the door trim back on i hung it where it would be and got out my tin snips and proceeded to cut a perfect hole around the speakers. once is was back on, i had speaker grills that i used the mini wood screws to screw onto the door with the drill.

5. Head unit
Get the wiring harness that it came with and match the colours with the original wires. yellow on yellow, red on red, remote on your rca to remote on harness etc. refer to other thread if need be. it all tells ya when you get your instructions with the head unit. in regards to the negative black wire. just tape that up and forget about it, as the aerial wire draws ground anyway. next connect your rca leads, make sure you connect them right, and make sure if its a 3 rca port head unit that each port will be either front speakers, back, or sub. then put your head unit back in. i didn't explain the head unit brackets or anything because its not hard... remember to use your new screws it comes with if the original ones out of the head unit don't fit into the new head unit.


6. Amplifier
Cable tie it low down anywhere it will fit onto the back of the seat. then connect all corresponding wires to it. it tells you on each one. connect the other end of the earth wire that you should have, to one of the screws on one of the head rests.

7. Subwoofer
install your slimline sub with box behind the seat and wherever it fits. run your subwoofer wires to it, and your done.


All there is now is to replace everything you removed and the system is ready to go. don't forget to put the fuse in on the red lead.

There you have it. once you have done all that you will have a rocking system like mine

I hope that helps everyone that wants to do it them selves. If you want to know more feel free to ask a question, and also if you want to add anything or found that i didn't mention anything, or a mistake please let me know.

Cheers Everyone.

-Watchdogg-

 

[BOOGZ STR]

Thats Awesome dude, i have put whole systems in each car i have owned and the Nav is soon approaching to it's turn. This will be very helpful and should be stickied!!

 

[Dave]

Can I move this to how to ?

 

[Aido]

Best how to I have seen on here EVER. Nice work.

 

[will]

Nice write-up mate, any chance of a pic of your sub & amp?

The only thing i would pick on you for is running the RCAs down the center of the car. Like that it can run next to wires that terminate into the engine management computer which can cause you to hear engine noise through your speakers, if you don't then SAWEET!.

Well done.

 

[Watchdogg]

Thats Awesome dude, i have put whole systems in each car i have owned and the Nav is soon approaching to it's turn. This will be very helpful and should be stickied!!

haha no worries

Can I move this to how to ?

you mean in the DIY section? you can copy it there? generally when i was looking for pointers before i did this system i went straight to the d22 section and electrical. didn't even think of the DIY section. which is the reason its here so people could find it easy. up to you Dave

Best how to I have seen on here EVER. Nice work.

thanks Aido! I did my best! I could of put more pics and a bit more detail but i thought that was enough.

Nice write-up mate, any chance of a pic of your sub & amp?

The only thing i would pick on you for is running the RCAs down the center of the car. Like that it can run next to wires that terminate into the engine management computer which can cause you to hear engine noise through your speakers, if you don't then SAWEET!.

Well done.

cheers will. yeah I knew someone would pick on me for it. but I haven't had a problem yet, and my rca's have enough to run down the side of the car. there's no drama in doing that. its just easier through the middle and less mucking around under the dash


there is a pic of the amp on there. oh wait a sec there isnt damn it. there was. it must of stuffed up when the forums changed servers. i'll mend it soon!

 

[Watchdogg]

okay just fixed all that up. can't be bothered takin photo of sub tonight. will do tomorrow for ya

 

[Brett 76]

Might actually be able to attempt this myself after this DIY post. Thumbs up mate.

Brett

 

[Bigalski]

Can we please make this a sticky? (or even merge it with the stereo wiring sticky) It's one of the most common mods anyone does and this is one of the best How-to's i've ever seen on a forum.

EDIT: just did a loose install of my headunit which was simple enough. big thanks to the OP for simplifying my task of finding the screws and tabs to remove Only thing i need to add is that on my 2004 ST-R there is an additional bolt (with a philips head screw slot) in the door. Its located in the arm rest hidden by the cushioned vinyl part. You need to pop the vinyl part off with a flat head to get to the screw or you won't remove the door panel. I then found the only way to unplug the electric window switch was to rotate the door panel 180 so that i could use a small screw driver to depress the clip on the plug. They design those clips to be fast and easy for assembly, they can be a bitch to unplug when they are 7 years old

PS bought my D22 3 weeks ago. Tonight I bought a new head unit from my local Supercheap, was looking for a Haynes or Gregory's workshop manual and got told no-one makes them for Navara... WTF???

I'm glad I'm on this forum, but surely someone makes a workshop manual...

 

[Porch]

nice 'how to' man, wasn't going to bother to much with sound system because I didnt want to pay some1 to do it. might think about an upgrade now that I got this to refer to

 

[Dave]

Can we please make this a sticky ? (or even merge it with the stereo wiring sticky) It's one of the most common mods anyone does and this is one of the best How-to's i've ever seen on a forum.

EDIT: just did a loose install of my headunit which was simple enough. big thanks to the OP for simplifying my task of finding the screws and tabs to remove Only thing i need to add is that on my 2004 ST-R there is an additional bolt (with a philips head screw slot) in the door. Its located in the arm rest hidden by the cushioned vinyl part. You need to pop the vinyl part off with a flat head to get to the screw or you won't remove the door panel. I then found the only way to unplug the electric window switch was to rotate the door panel 180 so that i could use a small screw driver to depress the clip on the plug. They design those clips to be fast and easy for assembly, they can be a bitch to unplug when they are 7 years old

PS bought my D22 3 weeks ago. Tonight I bought a new head unit from my local Supercheap, was looking for a Haynes or Gregory's workshop manual and got told no-one makes them for Navara... WTF???

I'm glad I'm on this forum, but surely someone makes a workshop manual...

Yeah I think its a good idea.

Nice write up dude.

 

[bowie277]

Nice run down on things mate. I took the easy way and put my amp under my passenger seat when i did mine ages ago lol but nice thread

 

[Pane]

G'day

I just installed some 6 inch Polk speakers into the back doors of my dec11 d22 and found that there was all ready speaker wires there.

For those that have all ready pulled there headunit out the plug on the speaker wires in the back doors looks identical to the cigarette socket in the centre of the dash. It's taped to the wiring loom of the central locking motor just below the inner door handle.

Cheers

 

[tony d22]

Thats nice to know.
So all that needs to be done is plug the connector into the head unit and then plug the wires into the back of the speaker.
How much room is there to fit speakers?
Did you fit them in place of the ashtray?
Thanks

 

[Pane]

G'day

I bought a pair of DNA 6 inch speaker pods and screwed them to the door trim, I did have to still cut a bit of the trim away to fit the speakers in hut doesn't effect the window or anything inside. I was even able to leave all the dust guard plastic in tact so no dust will ever show.

I'm happy I could keep the stock headunit as I reckon it's fairly good. Next thing to do is a alpine pdx 5 channel amp and a kenwood shallow mount sub.

Cheers

 

[Watchdogg]

Damn sorry for being absent from the forum for sooooo long, but haven't been Mr Geek on my pc for a while lol. Ok first of all thanks and cheers for the comments. Secondly, I'm lazy and at the moment can't be bothered to edit this even tho i probably should. There's always room for improvement.

Thirdly! This is Sweet F all room for the speakers! 6 Inch speakers for the front. and 4 Inch for the back. The 6 inch on the front is a simple swap over using the original bracket from the old speakers and a couple of tek screws. Easy.

The back 4 inch speakers were a little bit of a stuff around. Yes you do have to remove the ashtray. Now it was my first time so i kinda did it the shit way lol and I had the door trim on with the ashtray removed so its just a hole. and i held the speaker near enough to cover the hole and just put the speaker there, then What i did is literally just screwed the speaker straight into the door, no mounts no nothing. After that i hung the door trim over the door proceed to clip in all back in to a degree, then i go a pair of tin snips and just snipped around the speakers lol you can't tell but they are not exactly in the same position as one another close enough. But you can get the same its simple, 4 inch speakers fit bloody perfect in the door because in the spot i put them, they're is a hole and the metal mold of the door is good enough that you can put about 3 screws in, you will see what i mean. Oh so once you find that good spot and your happy the speakers sit nice do the door trim trick but instead of cutting around them, just transfer the centre of speaker to door trim measure your width of speaker, some will vary within a few mm's of one another and then cut the hole in the trim in the exact spot on both doors, then just hang the trim back on the doors and adjust the speakers so they sit perfect in line with the holes. otherwise if your lazy just do what i did lol. and then screw a speaker grill on the trim like mine using woodscrews and glue if your pro. Bobs your uncle.

Don't try and fit speakers where the fake original grills are, shit idea, don't see how you could anyway and if ya can, well when u close the doors, that grill sits flush and hidden behind the back seat, how you gonna be able to hear the sound lol!

 

[dtwentytwo]

I'm on a tight budget and a sound system is one of my must-haves, so I'm reluctant to pay someone else to fiddle about with it when I could probably manage by myself. I think after reading this I've got something to go by now, so yeah, cheers, awesome write-up man!

Also, what sort of sound did you get out of using 4" and 6" speakers?

 

[RacingMad]

I'm on a tight budget and a sound system is one of my must-haves, so I'm reluctant to pay someone else to fiddle about with it when I could probably manage by myself. I think after reading this I've got something to go by now, so yeah, cheers, awesome write-up man!

Also, what sort of sound did you get out of using 4" and 6" speakers?

It depends on the quality of the speakers. If you buy decent ones you will get awesome sound.

Hey guys who has put in front component speakers in and where have you located the tweeters? Im a bit reluctant to drill a hole in the door steel for the tweeter. any sugestions?