Doing a COMPLETE top to bottom system install....all by myself...

Ok guys. I had a chance to get started last night around 6pm and go the truck gutted and ready to start on my install. Here's my pile of stuff to install (forgive the trashbags we had a garage sale saturday and those are the leftovers to be dropped off at goodwill):


There's really not a lot to see so far, but i will say that when i took the door panels off i was surprised to see only a piece of styrofoam as a liner!


That will never do, so I removed the door panels on all four doors and removed the liners along with the stock speakers since i will be replacing them. I am planning on dynamatting all of the doors, and I'm really anal about stuff, so I actually scraped away the line of adhesive that held the liner on. It was a real pain in the ***, especially around where the stock speaker was, but I think the dynamat will sit flush on the metal now and not have any bumps from the adhesive. This stuff is sorta like the stuff they use to stick credit cards to the paper when they mail them to you, except 1 million times stronger. What I did was to pull it up with my fingers on one hand, and use a plastic putty knife to just keep poking it as i pulled it up with the other hand. I'm not even sure if this was necessary but I would rather get it done now then not do it and regret it later. Anyway here's how it looks now without any liner or adhesive or speaker.


I also removed all the seats, the center console, the trim pieces around the floor and finally the carpet. You will notice the rear wall liner is still in the pic. It is completely loose except for right in the middle there is a seatbelt guide that uses plastic tabs to stay in and is in there REALLY GOOD. I figured I can fold each half in and dynamat with that in place. I'd rather do that than break or loosen those things and have them rattling later. I also got the stock stereo and faceplate removed because I had promised to ship them to their buyers today, but i'm sure you guys don't need any pics or instructions for doing that. Here's what it looks like at this point. I am not actually ready to START my project lol...heading out to get started, will post updates tonight.

Ok so just came inside from the few hours i got to put in today. Our whole house is sick, so had to come back in and help with the kids. Anyway...I got all of the dynamat laid, ended up using 10 pieces that are 18x32 inches and i think it worked out perfect. That would be two of the "trunk kits" each comes with 5 pieces. I put one piece on each door, one piece on the back wall and under where the stealthbox will be, one piece basically under each passenger, one in the middle, and then cut up the last piece to fill in some gaps. Word to the wise here, folks, if you are working with this stuff where some gloves. The aluminum is like a razor, especially after you cut it. You will also notice I got all of the door speakers installed. I ended up mounting the crossovers directly to the door with metal screws and they will fit perfect under the empty space where the arm rest is when the panels are reinstalled. I also made sure to face the rear of the crossovers to the rear of the door because there is a switch on the crossover to adjust the tweeter output. This way i will be able to pull the door up from the back and use a pencil or something to adjust the switch if needed.






I purchased some speaker adapter rings from a website (don't remember which) and they worked perfect in the doors using the stock 6x9 housings. The tweeter adapters on the other hand, posed two problems. As you can see from the pic, the hole for the tweeter is way to small for any tweeter I know of, so i had to cut it bigger so my tweeter in the flush mount ring would fit.



Once I got that done and did the test fitment, i found that the stock tweeter cover would not snap into place due to the tweeter being too tall on the adapter plate. What i ended up doing is installing the adapter on the UNDER side of the dash. You can imagine what a b this was. I used a 3/4" screw from the top and a wing nut on the bottom so that i could use my finger to hold the bottom and a screwdriver to tighten from the top. Now that the adapters are secure, my tweeters will drop in perfectly. Once everything has been tested, I plan to use all weather silicone around the tweeter mount to secure it to my adapter.


I am now to the point where i am starting to lay everything out and get wires ran and start connecting stuff. I plan on putting one amp under each seat and using the mini center console i found under my bench seat in the middle as a mounting spot for my power distribution block and the source box for the headrest monitors. More to come tomorrow...

Ok guys....the Titan install is officially DONE. I may have skipped some of my steps because i got anxious and have been sick for three days, so if anyone has any questions about how I did something, feel free to ask. Today i got all my wiring laid out where i wanted it, bundled together where it would be and then relaid the carpet.



I then used the mini center console i found under my bench front seat as a wiring spot. I put my fuses and distribution block there, as well as the source controller for the headrest monitors and the sirius tuner.


I got the head unit installed and found the perfect spot to mount the bass control knob for the JL 500/1 amplifier. Just to the left of the AC controls, there is a round plastic piece that worked great. you can sorta see it in the pic.


I mounted one amp under each seat and got the wiring all cleaned up. One thing you can't see in the pics is how i mounted the amps to the floor. I took hard plastic rod i had in the garage that was about 3/4" diameter and cut 8 1" pieces out of it. I then drilled a hole in the middle of each one and put them under the corner of each amp and used self tapping machine screws to secure the amps to the floorboard. This keeps the amps 1" off the floor so that the rear floor heaters were not blocked as well as giving the amps some distance off the floor in case of a drink spill or wet carpet or whatever.



Put the front seats back in and then ran the lines up the backs of the seats to the headrest monitors I previously put in. To do this i came out the side of my console, into the back of the seat and up to the headrest. This was really easy because my seatcovers unzipped on that side so i could just unzip them and run my hand all the way up to the headrest.


For the main power feed, I went through the firewall on the drivers side through the same hole that the hood release goes. There was a large grommet there that i just cut a hole in and fed my 2 gauge wire through. I then ran it across the back and over to the battery, mounting my 150amp fuse to the lid of the relay box behind the battery.


I also installed the Boyo license plate frame back up camera today. No pics of that but it was very easy. With the boyo it has a single wire that runs from the camera to the back of the stereo that also has a 12volt and negative wire. I wired those into my head unit and my head unit had a purple wire that needed to be spliced into the reverse wire on my vehicle. It took me a while to find the reverse wire because i don't have rear view wire or the one everyone talks about in the passenger kick panel. I did find a green/white wire in the driver kick panel, put a volt meter on it and sure enough that was what i needed. As far as how i got the wire into the cab, i found a grommet on the rear wall drivers side about 10" above the floor that had nothing in it. i used my razor to make a small X in the middle and fed the wire out from the cab. Done deal. I like this wiring set up better than what some other have done because it allows the camera to be on at any time rather than just in reverse. my head unit actually has a button i can press to view the rear camera at any time, which will be nice for monitoring my boat on the highway or whatever.

The last thing i did was mount my JL stealthbox under the passenger side of the rear seat. this was pretty easy with only one long stud that had to have a hole drilled through the floor and a nut/washer tightened from the under side of the vehicle. Now everything is completely done, working and sounding great! Just a little tweaking to do on EQ and stuff.