Navigation System Install (Almost)

Man, what a hectic weekend. Seems like I spent the majority of it working on Ellen's car. After the mishap last weekend with trying to use the wrong wire harness, I was finally ready to give the radio install another whack.

I had to take apart more than the dash this time. I needed access to the parking brake for a sensor there and the rear deck to mount the GPS antenna.


It was not fun popping all the clips, not to mention keeping track of how it all came apart. Even my work table was full.


Once the dash and console were taken out, I had great access to route all the wires, except behind the radio. There was barely enough room to squeeze all the wires back in there.


It took me two days to get it all back together and looking nice.


I had a few glitches as the sun was setting on Sunday. First, I apparently had the unit turned on too long and drained the battery. Took me a few minutes to even locate the battery to put my jump pack on it. I eventually found it buried in the lower passenger fender. The entire inner fender has to be removed to replace the battery. GM really didn't want people to be working on this car! The second glitch was found when I took it out for a test drive and realized the GPS wasn't tracking. I apparently kinked the antenna wire somewhere during the install and shorted it out. I have another one on order and hopefully will be installing it this next weekend. Yep, that means all the interior needs to be ripped open again . . .

Monday was my father-in-law's birthday. We had a casual meal at our place followed by some ice cream cake.