Hi all,
I have a '99 TJ and the center bezel was in dire need of TLC. The radio was a piece of junk, two of the three switches were broken, and the heater unit was burned out (more about that in a later post ). On top of all of that, the actual housing was cracked. So I decided to replace everything.
The first pic is of the housing stripped down with the cracked bezel removed. The next pic is of the new switches. I replaced the foglight switch and the rear wiper switch with aftermarket switches from Autozone. Not too expensive, and they work perfect!
Next was the stereo. I wanted a simple unit with a CD player and a USB port. I chose a Kenwood KDC-BT375U, which is an easy to use, good quality unit...and it was well within my budget. The only problem with the stereo unit was that it only bolts to the console with two screws and is essentially 'freefloating' with nothing to give it support. To solve the support issue, I used a Metra 99-6501 dash kit, which is the only one I came across with robust side anchors for support. I also stacked two rubber furniture pads together and screwed them in with a wingnut. This gave the unit something to sit on to limit the torque applied to the front screws that hold the unit in place. I'm not interested in shaking the neighhbors windows, I just want a decent sounding unit, so I kept the speakers simple - Pioneer 50 watters. I did, however, connect cables to the subwoofer input jacks on the back of the unit and tucked them behind the glove compartment,,,just in case
.
In the next part, I'll show the new AC/heater unit (and rant about the old one which had caught fire)
and install the shiny new bezel/housing!
I have a '99 TJ and the center bezel was in dire need of TLC. The radio was a piece of junk, two of the three switches were broken, and the heater unit was burned out (more about that in a later post ). On top of all of that, the actual housing was cracked. So I decided to replace everything.
The first pic is of the housing stripped down with the cracked bezel removed. The next pic is of the new switches. I replaced the foglight switch and the rear wiper switch with aftermarket switches from Autozone. Not too expensive, and they work perfect!
Next was the stereo. I wanted a simple unit with a CD player and a USB port. I chose a Kenwood KDC-BT375U, which is an easy to use, good quality unit...and it was well within my budget. The only problem with the stereo unit was that it only bolts to the console with two screws and is essentially 'freefloating' with nothing to give it support. To solve the support issue, I used a Metra 99-6501 dash kit, which is the only one I came across with robust side anchors for support. I also stacked two rubber furniture pads together and screwed them in with a wingnut. This gave the unit something to sit on to limit the torque applied to the front screws that hold the unit in place. I'm not interested in shaking the neighhbors windows, I just want a decent sounding unit, so I kept the speakers simple - Pioneer 50 watters. I did, however, connect cables to the subwoofer input jacks on the back of the unit and tucked them behind the glove compartment,,,just in case
.In the next part, I'll show the new AC/heater unit (and rant about the old one which had caught fire)
and install the shiny new bezel/housing! 
