[zorminster]

You will be fine man. Its really not that hard- and once you do it you'll be glad you did because you will have seen whats below the surface of your car- and youll just wanna do even more ;p

That carbon dash piece is always a source of angst it seems- Gimme till tomorrow morning and Ill take a picture of it removed so you can understand how its retained- thats the best way to show you how to remove it. Basically though, you do pull it straight towards you to pop its clips out- the only catch is the far right side has what looks like an L on it- it opens out to the right, which means you slight it towards the left to get it out. You will understand when you see a picture.

Theres not going to be much difference in AT / MT - you will need to retain your wires considerably more carefully in an MT to keep them out of the way, but thats really it.

best advice I can give is be patient and dont be put off by the idea of stopping mid-way to come post and wait for answers if you need to. A 1/2 finished job is always better than a finished, but dangerous or damaging job.

 

[zorminster]

honestly? no. Currently i use a cigarette adapter FM Transmitter and I just toss my MP3 player into the cup holders. Easy to acess, I leave it laid over on its side and can close the lid to hide my expensive player from the outside world. I used to leave it where the ashtray is, but I found it to be annoying to pull it out since the wire usually wrapped around the shifter. If you opt to use the cup holder area like i did, there shouldnt really be any drilling- the left side (nearest driver) of the compartment is actually open and you can run a wire right in from underneath with little or no trouble. I'm not sure abou the IPOD plug- it may be too large to simply slide through.

I would advise against using the glovebox- it means youll be all up in your passengers lap whenever you wanna play with the music- and it tempts your passengers to mess with the music; which, in my car is grounds for you being deposited on the side of the road.

I've also used the center console (both the top and bottom compartments) and found it to be as annoying as the ashtray since I have to lift up my arm and pull out the mp3 player.

Now, i'm not really familiar with the IPOD audiolink unit- does it let your steering wheel controls work the IPOD? If it does, then accessing your pod isn't really an issue and you could use the center console or the glove compartment- Something to consider, can you turn on and off the ipod w/o accessing the ipod itself with this unit?

You could also consider the left side of the dash, under where the HID leveling switch would be there is a small pocket- i'm not sure if it would accomodate the IPOD, but I do know that it isn't impossible to fabricate something to hold your IPOD there, facing the driver. Theres really endless possibliities once you start thinking about what can be made.

 

[zorminster]

here ya go man, as promised pics: removal process is @ the bottom of the page

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2441419/4


hope it helps!

 

[zorminster]

[quote author=icspots link=topic=65469.msg1121982#msg1121982 date=1167238118]
btw the pics are on page 4 of that.
[/quote]

bah! well thats embarassing... now how the heck did i link the wrong page... lol. anyway- its proper link now.

 

[zorminster]

just-routed my fm transmitter wire so theres now a pic of where my MP3 player sits up on page 4 as well. was quite simple to get the wires where they needed to go.

 

[zorminster]

Yea, or i could save myself some cash. If i'd known what I know now, I would have gotten a modulator instead of a transmitter. This iRiver FM Transmitter has worked great for me though and I really don't have any complaints about it.

What I really need, is Mazda to quit being such cheap SOB's and to make a 6 disc changer that could read MP3s. But thats certainly asking too much of them : /

 

[zorminster]

meh, i'll survive without ;p although i'll be expecting one from you around this time next year ;p

 

[zorminster]

at the risk of sounding obvious... why not store the ipod...umm....in the console w/ the wires? why bother moving it? Throw a pic up showing us your shifter /ashtray / console area-- i think icspots thinks you can see wires near the ebrake / shifter area-- and from your original description i thought so too, but i'm guessing we just mis-interpreted you.

 

[zorminster]

oh, well if theres no misunderstanding and you can see wires running.... then i've gotta agree with icspot- it can't possibly look as good as it would if you were to hide the wires. Oh well. To each their own!

 

[zorminster]

we demand pictures for our efforts to help ;p

glad to hear ya got it in man!