Hi everyone. While this may be my first post but I’ve been around reading all yours since I bought my truck back in April 2004.
My first significant mod to the truck is the recent installation of a DVD player with built in TV tuner, two 7” headrest monitors and a 4 input/ 3 output A/V switch (which allows me to watch a different source on each monitor). I bought all of the above Accelevision products as a package deal (that also included the TV antenna, two 2 channel IR headphones and all necessary wiring) from Audioinmotion.com (nice people). The installation may look pretty elementary to some of you but I’m not exactly a whiz kid when it comes to electronics and yet was able to do this install 100% on my own – so if I can do it, you can do it!
The first thing I did was pick up a few pieces of aluminum from the local HD to create a mounting bracket for the AV switch under the seat. Cut it to size, drilled some holes to mount the switch and then mounted the entire assembly to the front and back frame work under the passenger seat. The rear is screwed directly into the back seat brace and the front is attached to the round brace via plastic ties.
Secondly I pulled out the whole glove box and cut a hole in the bottom so that all the rca and power jacks would be accessible underneath and so that the glove box would actually close because the player with rca’s attached was a little too big to fit. Then I just mounted the player using the supplied mounts to the back wall of the glove box, hooked up all the wires and re-installed.
The cool thing about this package is the dvd player came with two power connectors, one to hardwire and one with a cigarette lighter plug – I of course opted with the later. Then I just used one of those inline wire taps to the red cigarette lighter wire to get power to the AV switch, which in turn will also power the monitors. I grounded the switch to the seat frame.
The most nerve racking part was cutting apart my headrests and installing the monitors but after drilling holes in the seat frame and destroying my glove box, I figured I didn’t have much left to loose. For this I just followed the same procedures I found posted on this site and others. Outline, cut an X and cut away a lot of foam. I then passed the connectors out through the existing hole in the headrest for the posts, cut a small hole in the top of the seat, and passed the wire all the way down through and out the bottom back to the a/v switch.
Lastly, took the audio out from the a/v switch and patched it through the Pie amp (purchased separately) then bought a 6’ rca to mini plug adapter from Radio Shack and went right to the aux input. Works like a charm! One day I will have my brother, who is a bit more electronically gifted, hardwire the power and audio connections for me, but for now it was a very simple install. Total time spent was about 8-10 hours (planning time excluded) for a non-experienced person.
I must give props to MacFly, whose set up is what inspired my wife and kids to send me down this road after a few rides in his Armada. Who was I to say no
Phase two will include a third monitor in the navigation screen housing, pioneered by MacFly as well. Hope this helps those who are considering this project themselves