I bought a 1994 Mitsubishi Might Max pickup truck a year ago.
I got it so that I could teach a couple of kids to drive on an (increasingly rare) stick shift vehicle, so my requirements list was pretty small.
This was a year ago, October 2016.
Among other problems, the truck had a mass of dangling wires where the radio should have been.
My friend Jeff commented that he got a radio for $30, and instead of being proud of my cheapskatery, I found myself feeling embarrassed that I hadn't bothered to check.
I decided to install a stereo in the pickup. This $20 bluetooth radio from Walmart
I pulled on the wires, looked at the ragged hole the previous owner left when they removed whatever was there. And I shorted out the instrument panel as I started looking at the wires. I drove the truck with no visible speedometer after dark for several days. I was left feeling a lot less confident in my abilities.
Then I drove home to Richland Washington for a couple of weeks to visit with wife and children, leaving the
When I returned I determined I would man up and get the radio installed. And discovered that My parents don't have any of the tools for this job.
Undaunted, I bought a soldering iron, heat gun, heat shrink tubing, wire stripper and a multimeter. (At this point I'm not sure, but it might have been cheaper to pay someone to install it, but I get to keep the tools, so still a good deal, right?)
I found a wire color diagram online, but EVERY SINGLE wire color was wrong, I assumed I would have to probe them all with the multimeter. I found persistent 12V. I found the "accessory +12V", I eventually figured out the ground, dimmer and illumination wires, which sadly had no matching wire on the radio I bought. I watched a video on Youtube about tinning your Soldering Iron (I really suck at soldering. I guess I've never really learned how it is done).
After soldering and heat shrinking the power wires, I replaced 3 burned out fuses. It was time (late really) to leave for work. I made a real effort to put away all my tools and supplies, making me late (since I was pushing my time). As I was doing this I thought "I should always put everything away when I have to stop in the middle of a project. How many times have I left things out and then returned to the project much later than intended, only to find that the things I left out have been damaged or lost because I left them out?"
When I pulled in to the parking structure at work, found that the instrument panel lit up again! This was much appreciated.
A day (and several hours of soldering later) the radio worked, but only out of one speaker (the right speaker has a broken wire, I have no idea what the deal is with the internal speakers if they are even still in the dash).
But I did it myself. I learned something. And I made my little truck a little better.
I got it so that I could teach a couple of kids to drive on an (increasingly rare) stick shift vehicle, so my requirements list was pretty small.
This was a year ago, October 2016.
Among other problems, the truck had a mass of dangling wires where the radio should have been.
My friend Jeff commented that he got a radio for $30, and instead of being proud of my cheapskatery, I found myself feeling embarrassed that I hadn't bothered to check.
I decided to install a stereo in the pickup. This $20 bluetooth radio from Walmart
I pulled on the wires, looked at the ragged hole the previous owner left when they removed whatever was there. And I shorted out the instrument panel as I started looking at the wires. I drove the truck with no visible speedometer after dark for several days. I was left feeling a lot less confident in my abilities.
Then I drove home to Richland Washington for a couple of weeks to visit with wife and children, leaving the
When I returned I determined I would man up and get the radio installed. And discovered that My parents don't have any of the tools for this job.
Undaunted, I bought a soldering iron, heat gun, heat shrink tubing, wire stripper and a multimeter. (At this point I'm not sure, but it might have been cheaper to pay someone to install it, but I get to keep the tools, so still a good deal, right?)
I found a wire color diagram online, but EVERY SINGLE wire color was wrong, I assumed I would have to probe them all with the multimeter. I found persistent 12V. I found the "accessory +12V", I eventually figured out the ground, dimmer and illumination wires, which sadly had no matching wire on the radio I bought. I watched a video on Youtube about tinning your Soldering Iron (I really suck at soldering. I guess I've never really learned how it is done).
After soldering and heat shrinking the power wires, I replaced 3 burned out fuses. It was time (late really) to leave for work. I made a real effort to put away all my tools and supplies, making me late (since I was pushing my time). As I was doing this I thought "I should always put everything away when I have to stop in the middle of a project. How many times have I left things out and then returned to the project much later than intended, only to find that the things I left out have been damaged or lost because I left them out?"
When I pulled in to the parking structure at work, found that the instrument panel lit up again! This was much appreciated.
A day (and several hours of soldering later) the radio worked, but only out of one speaker (the right speaker has a broken wire, I have no idea what the deal is with the internal speakers if they are even still in the dash).
But I did it myself. I learned something. And I made my little truck a little better.
