if i buy the molded 8 pin din connector from mouser, how will i know what wires to splice with what....for example the power and L and R speakers. Anyone have a color guide for the wires?

Tuff- not so with the $60 unit. I'm telling you, plug and play, brother, plug and play. But if you've got the skills and the time, fab up a whole mess of these and see if xoc will shill 'em for you. $60 is quite a wad for maybe $7 in parts. Personally, I buy the easy way out. A soldering iron is like a wrecking ball in my hands.

Yankee- per Grayham's schematic, pins 4-7 are your audio lines. Chop an RCA cable in half and wire accordingly. The power is pin 1 or 2. Good luck with that one...

"The power is pin 1 or 2"
Specifically - Pin 1
Ignore Pin 2.

yeahhh i think im gonna go the easy route and dish out 60$
Dont wanna do it wrong and send 12 volts to the wrong place or soemthing...could get ugly.

Atta boy.

I'm useless with electronics.

I built an adapter yesterday. This time, I thought I'd try the "cheap headphones" route.

I soldered my power wire to pin #1.

I soldered one headphone wire to pin #4, and the other headphone wire to #5.

I took the dash apart -- again. I crimped a connector on the end of the adapter power wire, and used another wire, also with a crimped-on connector, to pull off the 12V power in the dash. I ran both wires through a swith.

So, I plug the adapter into the back of my headunit. I turn the key to activate power. I turn the headunit on. I throw the switch, and . . .

AUX comes up! Huzzah! It works! Fucking A!

I immediately plug the power wire, antenna wire and now the headphone plug into my satellite radio.

Nothing. No sound.

I turn the volume to max. Nothing.

Fuck.



Well, I'm getting there. I know it works. I wired power through a switch without frying my headunit.

Shit. Maybe I better just order the part from Mouser . . .

if you have a stereo plug, there should be 3 wires... a left, right, and ground.

the ground will be obviously different form the other two, perhaps looking like a shielding material perhaps? Anyways, the ground wire would go to the negative source pins (6 and 7) while the left and right wires would go to the positive source pins (4 and 5, respectively). Instead of soldering, you could just twist the wires together and run some electrical tape over it - certainly easier than fumbling with that branding iron

Yep - tuff is right.

Don't give up yet Gary - you're almost there!!!

GrayHam, you are one brave soul. If I were you, that headunit would be BBQ'd by now.

Find your ground, and rock on.

Well, my wife promised me that if I fried my headunit, I could buy a new one. So I took a shot.

I don't think there was any ground problem. I just didn't wire the headphones up correctly. The wires are very small, and difficult to work with, and I became impatient.

At this point, I am definitely walking away from trying to solder wires onto those little pins. To those of you who can do it: Wow. That takes more concentration and focus and patience than I have.
If I do try to build this adapter in the near future, I'm going with the Mouser unit, and start splicing (think the wire tap-ins I used to splice into the power will work for the sound?):



Oh well. The in-line FM modulator I installed is leaps and bounds ahead of the wireless FM modulator, so at least the sound is better than it was . . . I can live with it.

The Mouser cable has very small wires (24AWG?). If you use an insulation displacement connector like the one in your picture, try to get the red ones intended for smaller wires.

Yup. Got 'em.

I used the blue ones (part #64-3052 at Radio Shack; 18-14 gauge) to tap into the power.

I also bought a pack of the red ones (part #64-3053; 22-18 gauge) before I knew exactly what size the power wires were.

So cool, I can use these to build the adapter.

This is a slow project, huh?

Just one thing-- you said you get a new headunit if you fry your factory one? Talk about a license to kill! What are you waiting for?! Fry that sucker and and get a nice double-din in-dash LCD touchscreen!

grayham, or anyone on here that knows..how do you take the dash apart???
I got the 2 screws after you lift the facia around the shifter, then the 2 screws under the stereo by that compartment....what else is there??

That's it. At least, that's all I have in my 2003. And your X should be identical to mine.

Can't imagine what's holding your dash on . . . unless it's simply pressure from being a tight fit. Have you tried to slowly pull it out towards you?

Oh! Don't forget the wiring plugs for both the hazard lights and the 12V power plug. Don't yank too hard and damage these . . .

hmm alright, i guess ill have to try it again, are there any "snaps" or soemthing in the upper part?

the adapter splits into 2 female RCA connectors, im guessing for left and right? Or does this matter in a car? I want to hook my ipod up to it, and i know i need the 3.5 mm connector, but i can only plug on of the RCA connections into the ipod. Is this all i need to get sound to come from all speakers?

i know its an old post, but i havnt seen an answer to this question. scottyJ where are you!

This is all you need. Plug it into the RCA's from the AUX IN adapter, and the other end into the iPod. Boom. You're all set. Discvered something about the adapter last month: The instructions say grounding isn't necessary-- for me, it was. I was getting engine noise 'til I grounded it.