Thanks a ton Whitman! You have bettered my audio pleasure in a manner which I never thought possible!

freestyle, I have yet to hear about alternator whine with this mod but I wouldn't rule it out. royce uses a 12v power outlet and he doesn't get any whine. either way, running a separate wire from the outer shield of the RCA jack to the HU mounting bracket will take care of it.

whitman

correction, noone I've set this mod up for uses the 12v power adapter. I have two that use ipod direct to the input, three that use the exact same system as I do (blitzsafe Universal IPOD adapter) and one that uses a harmon/kardon drive+play.

MOST RECENT NEWS: the user of the drive+play had his wired direct to stereo harness and had a H/U glitch over two weeks in with no problems beforehand. This could easily be a problem with the H/U and nothing to do with the mod but I feel the need to write it up. He can only play the first two tracks of his CDs (?) I would recommend using either my exact system (blitzsafe) or direct IPOD > input from now on.

whitman

Just did this mod today, sounds amazing. Keeps a nice factory look, but I'm still able to carry all of my music with me.

Took me a couple of hours, mostly with the ribbon, but after that its just soldering and you're done.

Thanks for the idea man.

anyone around please give me a vote, thanks!

this is all great but does anyone know where we can get these electronic strips incase we end up messing it up or we just want to prefab one up

So I really want to do this mod but am unsure how to wire to the switch and how to go about using just a headphone jack to do it.

Also, where should the switch be mounted?

Any suggestions/answers would be awesome...

Just did this mod...took about three hours...works like a charm. I did mine a bit differently...instead of blitzsafe ipod interface I used a RCA to 1/8" Stereo jack...all I did was cut off the RCA connections and connect the shielding to the ground on the switch...Sounds great! Thanks again!

xbsu, good to hear! strat33, that ribbon cable is near impossible to find.. $115 online or something like that. just make sure you read my instructions twice and have all the right tools (glue gun, xacto knife, all of it) the pins on the cable can take about three bends before they break so just be careful and bend once.

also, do you guys really need me to post wiring instructions on the switch? I almost feel like if you can't figure it out you shouldn't be doing this mod.. maybe I'm being too harsh? say the word and I'll post them.

whitman

I'd like to see them as I'm getting ready to try this mod and would like to make sure I'm doing it right!

Thanks

I just did mine and it came out great!

Thanks for the great instructions....

My specs
2003 Xterra 4x4 SE
6 disc indash RF unit
Ipod 80gig
Blitzsafe Ipod Adapter

The only thing I noticed if you have it on aux/Ipod and switch to Radio you will hear both Radio and Ipod. (no big deal)

I followed your directions but soldered wires and used heat shrink tubing on wires going to ribbon and then used hot glue.

I used a toggle switch but plan to replace it with a push button in near future.

mod cost me
Blitzsafe $50
switch $3
2 male RCA's $2
Cat 5 cable (Free had it)
Heat shrink (Free had it)

The overall experience- PRICELESS

Thanks again!

sorry, for a while the pics didn't work.. fixed now. I'll keep a better eye on the thread to answer questions.

whitman

whitman,

Just wanted to shout out and give the thread a bump to the top.

I did the mod back in sept 2007 and have been running my ipod ever since! This is one hell of a great mod.

Anyone needing this done and will a little soldering experience and time can do it carefully.

Thanks once again for this life saving mod.

Hi all...

First I'd like to thank Whitman for posting the intructions on the aux-in mod. I realize that some time has passed since this topic has been discussed, but I noticed that the photos posted are no longer active. Would you mind re-posting them whitman?

I have attempted the mod and i get audio from the cd player but for some reason it shuts down when I flip the switch to my aux-in and I don't get any audio from my aux-in. I'm hoping the pics will shed some light on what I've done wrong.

Also... I'm curious if anyone else noticed that if you follow this link: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=68140
pins 15, 14 and 13 were modified as opposed to 14,13 and 12 with pin 15 being a "dummy" pin. Is there a reason for this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks all!

Fellow Xterra owner,

Ryan
schlick90@hotmail.com

Hmm... That's really interesting. I my try taking that approach.

Is there some sort of signal sensing switch? If you plug in the ipod and start playing a mp3 it senses the signal and toggles the source, rather than a manual switch?

This could make everything internal to the radio (assuming there is enough room to squirrel the switch away in it).

That's not a bad idea LostDog. I'll have to look around for one.

For those of you looking at perfoming this mod, it appears as though there might be two different RF/HU models for 02-04 Xterras. The ribbon that connects the cd changer to the tuner carries the right and left channel audio on different pins. Just an FYI!

Has anyone else in this forum performed this mod? Without Whitman's photos I'm still having trouble knowing what pins to connect to where. Any help from anyone else has done this mod would be greatly appreciated.

I too would love to see the picks again, can someone post them up or send them to me, ill host for a bit. Also was a sound sensing relay ever discovered?

I am still in the middle of trying to get this mod to work. Is there anyone who has successfullly completed this that could answer a couple questions? Without the pictures, I am unsure what it is I have done wrong.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!~

Harris, I took a look at the other mod. The audio pins shift one down when passed through that middle "stick of gum" board.. I remember noticing this ('cause I completely disassembled my unit first time for modding) In this mod, the interception is done before that board.

** also please take another look at the other mod post, I'm confident the pins do not change between years. As long as it's a RF 6 disc you are okay.

whitman

Whitman,

Your explanation of the pins shifting down one on the board clears up a lot! Thanks for re-posting the pics, I can now see what I did wrong and I'm anxious to get mine fixed. Thanks again!

-Harris

i know this thread is quite old now and it seems that everyone is now unregistered, but does anyone have the pictures which would help a ton with doing this mod?

Thanks

AHHHH does any one know how to do this or where the pictures are!!! ive done it, and everything works the same.... but when you flip the switch (which may be to wrong type/wired wrong?) the cd/radio goes off the head set freezes and doesnt do any thing! (till you turn off the car, switch the switch back then its back to normal! why is every one no longer a member!!

cody, I originally posted this but when they upgraded the site I lost my member and it disassociated all of my post and stripped the images. I'm trying to get the admins to restore the pictures, but what questions do you have? how did you 'do it'?

whitman

Hey, so happy to know your still out there! so I finally got the right switch 3PDT on-on mini toggle, and wired it how I thought it should work (have a basic understanding) but it is the same as before (when i was using just a DPDT switch)The CD playing works as normal but once the switch is fliped it stops working and freezes. I'm pretty sure I did it all right, but have no clue why it doesnt work, and I am still unsure on the switch wiring. Hope fully the admins will restore the pictures!

Thanks, Cody