Step 1:

while in the car, take off the front plastic panel where the climate control and the radio is by following JTC's how-to on changing the interior bulbs. you will see 4 screws holding in the radio.. take them out and pull the radio out. you will see a black wire and a harness connected to the radio. pull both of them out as indicated in the picture. i am only telling you to take it out because it can get very aggravating when you're trying to take the faceplate off while in the car. so take the radio inside and you're ready to get started.

Step 2:

Once the radio is out, turn it upside down and you will see two little screws which you will have to take out

Step 3:

after taking out the two little screws, you will then be able to take off the faceplate by removing all the clips that hold it in..

here's a picture of the bottom four clips you have to remove..

Step 4:

here is a big clip you have to also remove on each side of the radio.. it is best to have a small flathead screwdriver and just get underneath the clip and lift. it gets rather annoying trying to do it with you fingers..

Step 5:

and the last of the clips are located on top of the radio.. when trying to take out the clips, you may get frustrated that some clips snap back into place after you have already taken them out while trying to unclip other ones. so the best thing to do is work from one side to the other.. unclip the big clip on the side first, then work yourself down to the opposite side..

Step 6:

now that you have the faceplate off, the first thing you do is take out the 'tuning' knob and the 'volume' knob. the volume knob is pretty easy to take out, but the 'tuning' knob might be a little tough. if that is the case, take a set of pliers and pull it off.

turn the faceplate over so that you are in view of the backside of the circuit board. you will need to take out the two small screws as pictured.. when taking out the screw on the right, a small metal piece, indicated by the arrow, will also come off.. do not be alarmed. just simply put it back to the way it was after the completion of the install.

Step 7:

** NOTE **
there are no red colored gels small enough to fit directly on these small lights. so what i did was buy the red gel cap covers used to cover the dome light from pep boys and just cut it up.


take out the circuit board and turn it over. you will see 8 bulbs covered by little blue condoms. simply take off the blue coverings so that you expose all 8 bulbs. take the red gel cap covers and cut them. after cutting it up small enough to cover the bulbs, simply tape it down with SMALL, TINY strips of tape. make sure you cut the gel large enough so that it covers the bulb almost entirely or you will get a little variation in color.

for the screen, just buy the same red theatrical filter used for the red clock mod and tape two layers over the radio screen. if you only use one layer, it will come out orange. the only downside to making the screen red is that the radio display will be hard to see during the daytime. however, it will look really good at night. its your choice if you want to leave the screen white or make it red..

Step 8:

reassemble the radio, plug it back into your car, screw in the 4 screws holding it in place, and put the front panel back on. if done correctly, your radio should now look like this..

hope this how-to was of some help to some of you.. enjoy

INSTALLATION COMPLETE

That's freaking awesome! Thanks for that !

awesome how-to!!!

Great job. Is there any way to make the already blue bulbs bluer so it matches the rest of my interior lighting? At this point, it's that or buy a new head unit because these damn lights don't match...

im pretty sure that those blue condoms are so thin that they only make the stock lights appear like a 'super white'. if you want, try to buy the blue gel caps instead and put that over the bulbs after taking out the blue condoms.

very nice write up man. i might as well try this cause the stock radio isnt in my car! great job

Thanks for the write up, i've been waiting for this one!

Thanks for the detailed "How To" man, that's frigging great. Can't wait to try it

-=RoscoES=-