Well, it's raining like a sonofagun here in Maryland, so the mudflaps
will have to wait. I got the 6 disc in dash player in, and it is a real
nice Chrysler unit. Got the factory 1 cd head unit for sale if anyone
wants it. The new radio tells you what the call letters for the station
are, and you can lock in a type for the station, such as country, rock,
talk, etc.. Volume, fader, bass and treble all register as a digital
readout when you turn the knobs. Thanks to all who gave me hints on
pulling the face off the dash to get to the stereo. After I got it back
together, I noticed the stock unit had a grounding tab that I dont ever
remember pulling a connector off of. Did anyone else notice this tab or
remember unplugging a connector there (on the back) If so, I guess I
gotta pull it all back apart and find the wire and hook it up. It's
working fine right now though.
Here's a quick run-down of the dash bezel removal.
-Chock the tires so the truck wont move, engage the emergency brake.
-Remove 2 phillips screws holding hood release bracket on.
-Remove 3 #20 torx screws on bottom of lower dash under steering wheel,
then pop unit off of snap-in connectors.
-Remove 2 #20 torx screws from bottom of steering wheel column cover, 1
is right above tilt lever, the other is in center.
-Tilt wheel all the way down, and pull shifter down into L1 gear to
lower the shifter stalk.
-Remove the 2 phillips screws that go up from the bezel into the upper
dash, just above the gauges.
-Grab the bezel on the left side of dash, and pull out, popping loose
the snap-in connectors
-Pull on the bezel on either side of the steering wheel, and pop the
connectors loose there and then across the whole bottom.
-Pop the top of the bezel loose.
-Slide the bottom of the bezel out, taking care to pull the rubber seal
over the steering column.
-You have enough room to pull the radio out without unplugging anything
from the back of the bezel unless you want to.
-4 bolts with phillips head centers held the head unit in place, 1
antenna connector and 1 big rectangular connector too.
-Re-install everything in reverse order of removal.
-1/2 hour to remove and replace is about right.
I installed the spare tire lock. That took the whole of 10 minutes.
Then went on to the Bully tailgate lock. Got it in, removed it again
to adjust it per their procedure, re-installed it again. Still didnt
keep from opening the tailgate. After looking at it for a little while,
I determined that the inferior quality of the parts, especially the
actual lock mechanism and the slop/free play it had, was causing
everything to move and flex just enough to allow the latch to open.
There was no way to fix it except to get the slop out of the internals
of the lock. Excellent design, and it fit perfect, just poor tolerances
on the parts I guess. So, out it came, and back to Poop Boys it goes.
$20 sure beat the $75 for the Powerbolt, but the same dilemna as many
had as you could still open the tailgate. Actually, the powerbolt in my
'99 worked fine and never let me open the tailgate when locked.
No pics cause of the rain.
Patrick
ps DML slow today? Almost 6:00 and not even 1 digest yet.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Feb 06 2004 - 11:46:26 EST