HELP I want to play my Ipod!

Man, Now this makes me think twice. I am willing to go the more DIY route, especially if it will save me 100 bucks! Did you do it using the same steps/equipment as the thread i listed above? (http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/aud...head-unit.htm)
If all I need is the wire (which he wasn't real specific on), and the input jack, and some soldering, then I think I might be able to pull it off using the thread above, due to the amount of pictures, and explanation.

 

Couple of hints:

The hardest part of the project was "disassembling the radio". Make sure that you have a cup to place all your screws in. Do not force anything - the front face plate is easy to take off once you have removed all 4 screws to the side. Just use 2 screw drivers to push the tabs one after the other until they are all off on the bottom and the top.

As I have already said, use shielded wire to solder to the LCH and RCH points and ground it well.

Once you have done the above and started to assemble everything back, make sure that the cable is secured. Tie-wrap it to the outside holes of the radio to isolate the cable and solder points from vibration.

Where you put the female 3.5mm plug is up to you but the shorter distance the better. I mounted mine about 3 inches above the "Tune" knob.

One very useful suggestion: since most female plug has a short thread and may not be long enough for the thick face plate. I kinda "thinned" it from the back so the threaded "tube" protrudes from the lock nut/ring, else it will prevent the male plug from going all the way in and the signal will be "choppy"

ENJOY!

 

In our neck of the woods this is what we pay to have it professionally installed..
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/pts/2598528322.html

 

Thanks man. Ive been poking around here for a while now, so I can see how good posts work, and bad posts work. And this being my first real post, I thank you very much. Thank GOD im not "that guy"!!

 

I might add too that you could send your head unit in and they will add aux input for about $55.

http://factoryradioservice.com/toyota-tacoma-cd-radio-with-aux-input-p-59.html

If you go this rout you would get major rep points if you take a picture of where he tapped his aux jack wires because his mod claims to hard wire to the radio which in my opinion would be better than the DIY mod which uses the cd player inputs.

Here is a description of the head unit he is selling on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Toyo...746199?pt=Car_Audio_Video&hash=item2c5f23da57

But like the previous link says you can send in your head unit and he will perform the service for you.

 

Op pm sent

I have one in my garage you can have that didn't work for me since I have a 2011 jbl

 

In my Third Post of this thread I explain a little more about shielded wire. At the time I did the DIY aux mod I did not use shielded wire since I didn't feel like buying any at the time but after I went through with the factory bluetooth mod I used shielded wire on all my positive and negative signal wires.

Give the DIY aux mod a try there are plenty of people that have done it who can probably answer any questions you might have.


@PaidUpTruck: you should drop some of those hints on the DIY aux thread I am actually thinking about revising the first post to include some of the advice from people who have done it. Thread is getting so long that I think it would be a good idea to summarize some of the lessons learned.

 

Thanks a lot for the further responses. I wish I could be the guy to find out where they wire it, but I am afraid I would first like to figure out if I can do the entire thing for less than $5. I am a DIY guy, just not so much in my Taco just yet. Hopefully this is the first of many for me. The fact that I can do it for under 5 bucks.... has me sold. I already made the trip to Radio Shack and got my AUX jacks. Now all I need is a couple of free hours and a garage to work in. Hopefully by Monday I will post my results!!!

Thanks again. And believe me, as soon as I have trouble you will be hearing from me. Ill be posting something like.... "HELP!!!!!!"

 

Oh yea, one last thing. About the sheilded wire. I was going to use old headphone wire. I might also be able to acquire some speaker wire. Which one should I use? I know it has to be small enough to solder to the stereo, but is headphone wire "shielded" like you are talking about? speaker wire?

 

I don't think they are shielded. My iphone headphones had some kind of shielding on them though. Personally, since you don't need that much I would go to your local salvage yard and pull some out of a car there.

Hint: it doesn't have to be a tacoma or even a toyota for that matter. Just make sure it has three shielded wires plus a bare ground.

If they let you pick yourself you could easily just take a pair of dikes and cut a 1 foot section out. Depending on the salvage yard they might not even charge you. Whenever I go to yards to pick up parts I usually will grab random stuff like shielded wire and what not just because I can include it in the price of the part I am there to get (just to sweeten the deal). Radio shack might sell shielded wire too or you could always google it to find where to order it. Chances are though, you will have to order some minimal amount which will be a lot more than you need. So yeah, a picking yard would be my first stop.

It will look something like this, except it will have one more wire. Notice this just has a black and white signal wire, you need a left channel, right channel, and ground, plus a bare shielding ground wire.

 

@fbconvert, feel free to cut and paste my hints to your DIY AUX thread. I have learned so much from everybody here and anytime I can contribute,...I will!