I have a 2003 SCREW and will be replacing the stock Radio unit soon. Due to budget restraints I am not going with the full NAV system but rather a nice unit that full fill's 98% of my needs. While I am undertaking this project I have been seriously considering drilling upwards through my dash and running the wires for my GPS and Radar detector through such a hole. By doing this I will minimize the wires I have running from the devices which are all over my field of vision. My question is have any of you drilled through your dash and if so have you been able to do it in such a manner that it looks ok and is not obtrusive. I have found several places that supply power supply plugs and my intent is to have them behind the dash inside the Audio space.

Any thoughts or concerns or warnings about this would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

I did that with my radar detector and it basically just looks like the wire dissapears when it hits the dash. I only had a single wire going down so I used a 1/8 bit and then squeezed in a bit of silicon to fill the extra space. I think it looks pretty clean.
Ive also seen wires run up into the roof and then down through that plastic piece between the roof and dash on the driver side. cant remember what it called but that method you dont have to drill anywhere i dont think. someone out there has done that and can chime in

 

no need to dril a hole. i have a second auxillary power port under my dash and have my gps charger run up through the dash to the a pillar and up to the top corner of the driverside window. clean and removeable.

now i do have holes in my piece that goes around the steering wheel for my rocker switches, just go slow and be careful if you do decide to do it

 

Can you post pictures of where your stuff is mounted? Maybe we can suggest where to route the wires. I do not like to drill holes in the dash if it can be avoided.

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Well currently the GPS is located on the drivers side right beside the edge of the windshield and about 8 inchs up. The Radar detector is almost directly Behind the rear view mirror and 6 inch's down from the mirror. I had planned to move the Detector down very low on the windshield so that the wire would only come up about 6 incs at the most. Running the wire through the dash and up the window / windshield pillar did not occur to me....duhhhhh but that may be a very workable solution for that device. I will post pictures of the current arrangement later this evening probably. Thanks for the suggestions so far.

 

Radar Detectors current location


GPS Location


An interesting discovery and a solution

Well I went out at lunch and poked around and took a couple of pics with my trusty Blackberry and I think the solution was in front of me the entire time. If you note there is an oval disk running from the center of the dash to the right and in front of the passenger seat. Poking around I discovered that the nice hot sun had made this disk very flexible and it was a simple matter to pry up the left hand corner, my thought is that it would be a simple matter to route the wires through the dash, once I pull the radio and install a dual accessory hook up somewhere under the dash and then run the wires as I desire. No drilling required and I cannot imagine the wires would be so large as to make them glaringly visible, especially since from the drivers seat the instrument cluster bulge hides it quite nicely. If I am successful with this project I will post some pictures. Thanks for the input so far and feel free to Kibitz and make suggestions.

 

yea the dash has many places you can hide wires with out drilling into it.

good luck and keep us posted.

 

with the radar detector you can feed the wire behind the radio and if you are careful you can have it come out where the dash pieces meet (right under where your radar detector is located. That is how I have mine). It took me a while but it looks a lot better.

 

yea you can run the wires out of the dash seams, possibly even out the defroster vent for the GPS

 

I would run the wires for the GPS across to the A pillar and down from there. If you can mount the detector above the mirror you can run the wires under the headliner across to the A pillar and down to join up with the GPS. The reason I suggest this is that if you ever have to remove the dash for a heater core or blend door replacement you will curse the day you ran wires under and through the dash.

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hmmmm good feedback and lots to think about. Thanks

 

This. When we do hardwire for GPS 95% go on the bottom left of the windshield. We solder leads onto the the postive and negative of the cig lighter, and then tap into the source.

For the radar, look into one of these...
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Escort+-...tor&cp=1&lp=19

we sell a generic one for like 10 or 15 that should work with the cobras. Its flat instead of coiled.

 

I wish I had a camera with me at school so I could take a picture. I originally had the radar wire going through a seam right in the middle but the wire was a little large and you could see a hump in the plastic and it just annoyed me so I drilled the hole right at the seam. Its basically a little notch in that dash piece on top middle that keep the plastic from sticking up around the wire. I like how it ended up so thats my $.02

 

Even more good input and things to think about. One thing for sure there are a lot of us wanting to do things like this and that sure helps with the Brainstorming. My New Jensen BT1611I CD Receiver will arrive today and I will work on installing tonight or tomorrow so I will have an opportunity to dig around under the dash and make my decesions. I think I may bite the bullet and get a new GPS and put the old one in the Wifes Van.She is always wanting to borrow mine and since she mostly is just running up to the Big City of Charlotte NC she does not need the most sophisticated system for Nav and my truck is our "Trip" vehicle justifying a new semi permanent install in the SCREW is easier....as long as she gets the new Kitchen Aid mixer she wants that is. When I complete the project I will post pics and give more feed back. Again thanks for the input.

 

I know your looking for feedback on the GPS and Radar... but im gonna offer some advice on your selection of Head Unit. Unless you payed like $20 for that thing, I would seriously rethink your selection. A lot of the kids in my area like to by junk headunits, such as Phase Linear, Jensen, Dual, and other Walmart type brands, and in my experience, they all are junk. The UI's are horrible, the feel of the unit itself when you press buttons is cheap (kinda like a GM interior), and the overall quailty is, well, junk. I normally am not one to slam a companies product like that, and I realize it seems appealing because of the feature list, but, there is a reason decks that cheap are that cheap. Just something to think about...