marmer

OK, my Panavise mount arrived, so this weekend I finished my DICE install. The moral of this story is: nothing is easy. All I had to do was pop off the radio bezel, take the radio loose, attach the Panavise mounts to the CC bolt and another screw, and put it all back together. Since I just had it all apart last week to do the DICE module install, I was very familiar with the layout and components. Easy, right? Maybe an hour at most...WRONG-O. It's times like these when I feel like I have no business owning any tools!

First, I couldn't get the radio loose with my DIN keys, even after doing it a week ago. Fine. I'll take the headunit face off, thanks MacSub. It wasn't seated all that well anyway. Turns out that the right side clip was bent 90 degrees up. Couldn't get it with anything. Finally knocked it loose after three hours of poking with anything that would fit. Even tried drilling a tiny hole for a pin to fit in. OK, out comes the radio and the right clip is all bent up and falls off. Deal with that later. Also thanks to MacSub I thought I'd run an extra ground wire to behind the glove box, so while I had the radio out I connected a long wire to the ground screw. Then I took the glove box down, breaking the back of it and one of the little metal wheel retainers in the process. I thought you squeeze the sides together. You don't. Anyway, once I had it down I spent about an hour and a half trying to get that wire from behind the radio to the glove box. I scraped every part of my body except my *** doing this. Apparently Audi really does build these vehicles out of recycled razor blades! After finally accomplishing the wire run, I was ready for something easy. Installed the first Panavise mounting hole on the climate control mounting bolt. Slick. The top mounting hole required drilling a hole in the plastic part next to the radio and putting in a sharp pointed screw. No prob. I had the drill out already. Drill the hole, perfectly centered, don't scratch the trim with the rotating drill. Going good. Don't drop the screw...oops! Pick it up, where is it? Is it behind the climate control panel? Oh, well. Fortunately I had a similar screw in my garage hardware bins. It's brown instead of black, but it'll be covered up. Put it in with a magnetic screwdriver this time, and the Panavise mount is solid as a rock. Wow, even though it's getting dark and rainy outside, I'm nearly done! NOT! Let's pop the face plate back on the radio. Let's get my wife, with her smaller hands, tactile sensitivity, and limitless patience to snap it back on. Oh, and while she's at it, let's get her to put the now nicely re-straightened radio clip back on. Well, the clip only took about twenty minutes to fit back into its little slots, holes, and guides. The face plate wouldn't lock in, no matter what. Finally we gave up and took it in the house, where with a bright light we could see that two tiny plastic tabs next to the PCB were in the way. We subdued them with electrical tape after a failed experiment at removing the PCB. We got all the little rubber control pieces back in place for the control buttons. Then we went back and after thirty minutes or so got the face plate to click on enough so that the radio would work. We tested it and the DICE interface worked perfectly by DICE standards, which means that after some random hemming and hawing by the iPod, it will eventually play what you want it to. So we quit for the night. Next morning, it was ground wire time. Per MacSub's instructions, I started the car, paused the iPod, and started poking around under the glove box for anything that looked like a promising ground location. They ALL created a much worse buzz, so after about a half hour of this, I said "Forget it" and clipped the wire off and taped the exposed end so it wouldn't short on anything. Then I put the broken glovebox roller back on with a metal washer to hold it and put the glovebox back in place (push the black levers, dummy!) Managed to get the radio trim bezel back in place, minus two broken clips; the increased friction of the cable passing through it next to the Panavise mount, and the mount bracket itself, seems to help hold the bezel in. The tightly fitting bezel seems to hold the head unit face plate in, at least enough for it to work. Total time: ± 18 hours for the complete install. It works great, and I thought I knew how to do all this. Now I know better. ;-)

Bruck

i ground off the metal screws behind the headunit.

broke90

1) I lost a screw, and I WAS using magnetic tip screwdriver.
2) You went towards glovebox side for earth point - I would have gone to steering column side. The panel beneath steering column is very easy to undo and I would drill a hole and use self-tapping screw direct into chassis if I had to.
3) HU/CC bezel is easy to come off, but clips are easy to break too. I filed some space off the bezel for the clip (you've seen my poor-man's version of a Panavise) and also a half-round hole for the cable so nothing is under stress.

marmer

Yeah, I might file a half-round for the cable. Or not. At this point I don't want to futz with it while it's working, and nothing seems too stressed (other than me.) I actually am pretty satisfied with the low level of ignition noise, you have to turn it up really loud with silence on the system to hear it. I went with the glovebox because MacSub went that way and it was easier to drop the glovebox. However, everything over there added a lot more noise. Where exactly did you ground under the steering column? Maybe if I ever have it apart again, after I recover from the emotional and physical trauma of this experience, I will try to go that way.

broke90

But I knew if I had noise then...

Glovebox side vs steering side - I should clarify. We're RHD so my steering side is your glovebox side.
Dropping panel under steering column I KNEW is only 2 screws beneath and 2 screws behind side panel. My fuse panel is on steering side so there's wires and earth points galore there.
I took one look at glovebox and THOUGHT it was more complicated to remove.

marmer

Like you, I don't have much noise just grounding to the chassis tab. But there is a little so I thought it wouldn't hurt to try since I had the radio out. Yes, I know that your RHD car's dash and structure is basically mirror image of mine. I've had the driver's side knee bolster off before to replace a fuse; it's not hard but just lowering the glovebox door without taking the knee bolster off is easier. Of course if you forget how to release the glovebox door, and if you can't find any good ground points behind it, then it's not so easy. Especially if you scrape yourself bloody on sharp edges back there.