Build thread. 08 CC install

arctictwist · January 23, 2012

Well i have a working stereo..... but lack a lot of interior parts and my amp is not mounted. Also My distribution block is wrong. I thought it went to 0awg, it only goes to four. I squeezed it in there but im not keen on it. Ill be ordering a new one. I am also going to need to extend some speaker wires. I know its not ideal but Ill solder them. Im hoping to get most of the truck back together in the morning. The Speakers already sound better than stock and i didnt tune anything. there is no bass, but im guessing thats because of whatever settings on the amp. Ill get on that in the morning as well. The headunit is NICE. I was worried at first that it didnt work, but it was just going through the demos and it kept saying source off. Once I touched the screen though it stopped doing that and i was able to turn fm on. No xm, i need to switch it over to the new tuner.

I have the service airbag light warning now that i put everything back in. How do i clear it? Also have service 4wd but im pretty sure thats because the dash isnt all back and those buttons are part of it. When im done, ill put pics up of the process. I took quite a few. Also did most of the big three. No battery to frame yet, need to find a spot to do that.

Parshal your thread put me on the right track for getting the power wire through the firewall and thanks for your help on snaking the back door speakers!

Thats it for now. Time to work.

parshal · January 23, 2012

The airbag warning will stay on until the seats are plugged back in.

arctictwist · January 23, 2012

I waited to plug the battery back in until the seats were in. Today I unhooked the battery for a while, re plugged the seat connections and hooked it back up and still there

parshal · January 23, 2012

I was referring to the airbag message in the DIC. Rereading your post I see that you actually have a warning light. I'd doublecheck all your connections again. Other than that, I'm of no help.

aesalazar · January 24, 2012

The 4x4 light will turn on if you do not have the switch on the trim plate plugged in so you should be good when you put it all back together.

For the air bag, I didnt have any problems when I replace my steering wheel. Try poping it off and make sure your connections are solid.

Ernie

arctictwist · January 24, 2012

Yea the 4 x 4 went away as soon as the dash was all back together. The service air bag however, i can not get rid of.

Ill try to post pics tonight. Still not completely done with this first phase of the install. But soon.

arctictwist · January 25, 2012

Ok so on Friday I showed up and had already had the back seats, doors and back wall apart.

I then began more of the tear out and quickly found that the front seats were bolted with external torx... Reall GM? SAE please! So I drover around like mad and should have gone to seats first, craftsman is my savior. They have a universal set

I then continued and ended Friday short to spend some time with my lady. This is where i left it.

When I got home I found presents from the UPS man.

arctictwist · January 25, 2012

So Saturday morning I head to work with my dad and the store is dead. It's a snow storm and not much was happening so he told me to go work on

my truck. I was there from 830am to 1030pm. I started by opening up the dash and taking out the carpet, doors, and the a and b pillars.

I know u can see some stuff already done in that pic but I seem to have forgotten to take a picture when I started sat morning. I started dampening next.

Back door

Back floor

Back wall

The front door I didn't snap a pic of just dampened

I also added some water protection for the speakers onto the brackets.

Sheet metal added

Siliconed

Dampened

Then I needed to run speaker wires.... Let me tell you that snaking them through the factory door boots is not fun but doable. If you pop the clip from the door side it helps.

I fit some small flexible copper trough there and then put a solid 16awg wire through it. Once the wire was through I held one end and pulled the copper tubing back out, leaving just the wire. Then I hooked the wire around the speaker wire and pulled it through. A lil fishing around and it'll go! I also dropped wire down from the pillar and through for the tweeter. That went really easy. I wired up the crossover and did the driver door. I was not sure about the rear doors to I left that for research at night.

Then it was on to the dash. I didn't take pics of this but I took out the upper and lower glove box to get to the xm tuner and took it out. I then found that you can just pull the yellow clip off the stock antenna wire and it slips in. Also there's a nice spot right on top some ductwork back there for the tuner to sit. My wiring kind of held it in place. Next came the head unit and PAC. Holy wires!

After quite a bit of fiddling I could not get the deck to fit with all the wires. I had snaked the rcas, and remote wire up behind the dash already and this is where I left it for the night.

When I got home I found that crutchfield says u can't mount this with rcas.... It won't fit... Can't? I don't know the meaning! ....

As you can see from previous posts parshal helped me out with those back doors.

arctictwist · January 25, 2012

So I took my sonicrafter to the warehouse Sunday morning an I made room!

And it fit much better. It only took a little moving around and all went it.

Then I put in the front speakers. The tweeter mounts had to be altered a bit. I also had to open up the holes in the a pillars a bit. To mount the tweeters I cut the rings off and made it a pretty flat surface, then used small pieces of the cld tiles to hold the tweeters on.

Here's the woofer and tweeter mounted. Note that I chose a bad spot to mount the tweeter. I ended up modifying the door panel a bit with my sonicrafter. Man that thing came in handy!

Next I had to snake the wires into the rear doors. Through this boot!

It was intimidating but parshal have me the heads up that while the door side doesn't have that mounting clip ring on the inside the other side on the b pillar does. A torx bolt removes the seat belt tensioner and gives u access to it. The wires here hve a terminal so u pop it off and let the boot hang. This makes for an even easier snake job than the front.

After that I mounted the rear speakers and got to work on the power cables. I only did two of the big three. I still need to do battery negative to frame. The positive to alternator I ran under the back of the top engine trim piece. I thought I snapped a pic but I didn't. There's actually a clip back there that 0awg fits into perfectly. I did the engine to ground off the alternator frame to where the ground strap mounts. And I punched through the firewall just below the brake booster for the main line to the amp rack. I ran this in the convenient channel GM provides along the door. Except in the front as its occupied on the driver side.

Then I straightened out the 4 way rcas for the speakers, remote, two way for the TBD sub, the bass boost for the TBD sub and the speaker lines. Oh and also the USB and audio input extensions. I put in the carpet an seats and you can see those last two sticking out here where the console will sit on top of them and connect.

You'll notice I already ran the speaker cable for the sub. It's twisted 8awg. And lastly the brains to this stereo.

I am not showing the amp or it's wiring yet because it's not done. When it is I will update. But that was my weekend!

RAK80 · January 25, 2012

Man, you have been busy! Nice write up so far with great pictures!

arctictwist · January 25, 2012

THnx! unfortunately there wont be more for a bit. Im gone for a week and a half starting tomorrow.

arctictwist · February 3, 2012

I am going home tomorrow and sunday is truck day....only before the game obviously. I plan on atleast doing the amp rack and buttoning that up. Id like to put my rear seat in temporarily (itll have to come back out when i finish the console box and need to install that and the amp. I think ive settled on 2 8w3s.

I do have a problem. Im not happy with the sound of the speakers and im told i need to seal the doors...fun. I think im going to do that and ccf. and i might as well put the MLV over it while im at it. This has turned into quite the expensive project.

arctictwist · February 4, 2012

Ok don talked me out of sealing them, too much work not enough gains. Gonna go with the ccf and mlv layers though. Ordering process has begun, soon to order the 8w3s and jl 500/1 amp as well.

arctictwist · February 5, 2012

Man! I don't know of putting those 8s in the center is gonna be possible. I really want to utilize the factory upper console and have the seat usable. Unless I can come up with a way to mount the brackets with the existing metal and still fit a box in there. It's not happening. The more I stare at it the more frustrated I become.

RAK80 · February 5, 2012

Man! I don't know of putting those 8s in the center is gonna be possible. I really want to utilize the factory upper console and have the seat usable. Unless I can come up with a way to mount the brackets with the existing metal and still fit a box in there. It's not happening. The more I stare at it the more frustrated I become.

Yeah it looks like it would be really challenging even to put one 8" in there and retain the seat. I'm really trying to convince myself that I don't need to upgrade my speakers in the doors but this thread is not helping me! lol