FJ Cruiser Update
FJ Cruiser Update
I’ve had the new truck now for a couple weeks and I am still very happy with the purchase. Last weekend I started the process of building a plan for installing all my extra toys, which I knew was going to be a long process. (Multiple ham radio’s, GPS, iPod integration, antennas, power distribution, etc.) I got the idea I would start with Google, I figured someone might have done this before and documented it. Wow is all I can say. There is a huge community which has done EXACTLY this stuff before.
I found a online forum dedicated to FJ Cruisers, with a huge group of people basically just like me. I have found multiple articles, all with great pictures, for installing every one of the things I want to install. This even includes the ham radios! I spent something like three hours last weekend just scanning article after article, taking notes and then trying to figure out which solution would be best for me. Yep, I’m really liking this.
During this whole process, something occurred to me that I hadn’t really considered before now. Just like there are certain routers you can buy, which are good for hacking on (WRT54G being the best example), there appears to be cars that are good for hacking on to. Unlike most modern vehicles I’ve owned, everything part of the FJ cruiser is accessible after removing a few screws and pulling some clips. The entire fuse panel is readily accessible and it has extra drops of power. Without knowing it, I have bought the WRT54G of vehicles! I can only assume that Toyota knew that the vehicle was going to appeal to a certain type of person and decided to build the product for them.
The first step was ordering the supplies I would need, they slowly started showing up during the week.(I actually managed to find about 90% of them at Amazon.com) I decided to attack the most basic items first, integrating the iPod and getting the GPS installed. I ordered this magic box which plugs into the back of the stock stereo and makes the iPod look like an external CD changer to the stereo. It took me all of about 25 minutes on Saturday to get the radio pulled out, install the cable into the back and route everything. The hardest part was actually figuring out where to mount the magic box under the dash, since there were so many options.
Everything worked perfectly and now my iPhone can be accessed and controlled from the stock stereo, including being charged. The controls on the steering wheel even work. I’m still waiting for the “docking port” part from ProClip, they were back ordered and it didn’t ship until Friday. But once it gets here, it will take just a couple minutes to finishing installing. (I decided to mount the docking port here)
The next project I tackled today was more difficult, I had to route power and again I wasn’t sure where to put some stuff. This time I tapped the fuse panel and run myself a power drop with a Anderson powerpole on the end. I then pulled one of the speaker grills off from the dash and routed the GPS power cable. I had to manufacture the cable, so it took a little while longer to get all the lengths right, but it all worked the first time. The hardest part was that it wouldn’t stop raining, so I was sitting in a puddle the whole time when routing the wires under the dash. I attached the GPS mount with sticky stuff and am letting it set over night before finishing the install. This isn’t my installation, but it looks exactly like it. (It was to dark to take pictures when I was done)
Which brings me to another cool thing. My GPS informed me today that its maps were two years old and I should update them. So I said cool, brought it inside and attached it to my Mac.(via USB cable) I’m really not sure how, but after pointing my browser to the Garmin site, it was able to access the GPS via USB (running something inside the browser) and figure out what update it needed. In order to-do the update, I had to install a browser plug-in, so it must be running some java applet, but it managed to figure out the model and state of software without having anything special installed. I was really impressed. I’m now sucking down 2.35GB of maps for the US and Canada.
I’m going down to Tacoma next week for a D-Star radio thing, so I probably won’t get much done. I’m still working out the ‘where’ part for installing the radio’s. I’ll probably route a separate power drop, right off the battery, to the back of cargo area. That alone is probably a ‘weekend’ worth of effort. (I’ll install a separate fuse panel for it and do relays so it gets turned off and on with the ignition.) I’m thinking of building a ‘radio box’ using MDF, but it is still a fuzzy idea at this point.