06 LT/3LT

Ok, I got everything I need and I'm getting ready to tear into the car this weekend. I have the body panel removal tool and an assortment of replacement plastic retaining hood/clip thingies. I got the PAC GM1416 from http://www.thebettersource.com and I gotta tell you guys that they RULE. Of all the online dealers that PAC's website links too, these were the only guys that called me back, AND had it in stock. I ordered it Tuesday and it got here Wednesday! Talk about smoking fast delivery! (I'm honestly not advertising for them, they just impressed me)

Anyways, I want to do a better job of hiding the wiring, and I'm having trouble removing the rear seat to do so. I got the four bolts along the top of the fold-down seat, but I can't find anything that holds the bottom down. Do the bolts come up from underneath meaning I've gotta jack up the car and crawl underneath it? I know the plastic trim panel beneath the rear passenger window will be easy to remove once Imable to remove the seat. That's where I want to run the wiring.

Any advise peeps?

 

I dont know if your interior set up any different then mine but all i had to do was pull up on the plastic piece between the seat and the door sill and ran the wiring under the carpet and you cant even tell it is there

then for the back seats( the bottom )all i had to do for mine was pull up on it and it just came right off and then ran the wiring under the seat and out to the trunk

i dont know if this helped but i thought i would try

 

The bottom part of the seat just pulled up? Man I tugged and pushed and pulled and couldn't get it to budge, or even figgure out where the darn hook was to disengage it! And that's weird because I know our seat backs are nearly identical because the mounting system is the same from my 2003 to my 2006. I just never pulled up the seat on the 03 because I had it professionally installed in the 03 LS. And the plastic trim on rear window is definitely stuck in place because of the seat. So I dunno what's goin on then. I'll look at it again today, now that the weather is a bit nicer I should be able to see more.

If you or anyone else has input / advise I'll be checking back periodically as I rip apart my interior.

 

Ok, I gotta admit I'm a first-timer, but who thought this'd be so complicated. So far I've removed the glove compartment, the trim piece under the steering wheel, and still can't get the cover off of the stereo. I just found another bolt hidden behind the big metal panel behind the plastic panel under the steering wheel. I can't believe you have to remove all this crap just to take the cover off of the stereo!

 

well ya have to remeber they dont want you to do this on your own.
so they dotn make it real easiy for you to tear it apart. inhopes that you will take it back to the dealer to get the work doen so they can make some money off ya.

when i did mine in the back seat i did it the same as you have said but i could not get the part off that your are talking about. So i ran a peice of coat hanger threw the place i wanted the wire to go and tape3d it to the end of the wire and pulled it threw the back of the seat to the trunk.

Also did the same thing with the rca cabels and also the remote wire.

you said your a newbi to this
then make sure you dont run the power wires for the amp on the same side of the car as the RCA cabels.
the remote wire dont seem to make a diffrence. but the other one will give you feed back int he stereo if ya do it.
GTood luck

 

Thanks Mickey, Well I almost had the dash done when it was getting way too dark and cold to finish. So I re-assembled what I could. [:'(] It's ridiculous the amount of crud you have to remove before you can even see where to start. 5screws to take out the glove box(dash), 2 to remove the trim plastic under the steering wheel, 4 to remove the metal panel underneath that, then there is 5 that I could see to remove the plastic around the stereo area. This is where I stopped because even with all of those out I could not get it to budge. I'm thinking there's probably nothing but clips left, but I'm hoping totalk tosomeone that has done it before. The other possibility is that I might have to remove more of the dash before it will come loose. The shifter **** also looks to be in the way, but there was just one screw on that, so it should be easy to remove. I'll have to try again this weekend when I have more time to play with it, and more light.

I found what appears to be a rubber plug in or around the firewall (passenger side)where some wires go through, so I'm thinking that looks like the best place to run the power wire. The thing is my 03 had just kind of a thin rubber seal, which was veryeasy to pull thepower cable through,where the 06 has this big rubber block, and no extra space.Does anyone know if there is another spot to go through the firewall that wouldn't require drilling through a big block of rubber?

Also, in my 03 the Best buy guys that installed it ran the wires together, the RCA cables are very thick and have kind of a silver foil right underneath the plastic sheathing, so they appear to be sheilded from interferance. I didn't have any feedback problems with the 03, but I'll turn the car on and test the system before I re-install all of the panels, just incase I need to re-route the cable.

I wouldn't need to pull so much off of the stupid dash if the stereo harness wasn't hidden behind everything. Is there a plug anywhere else where I could plug in the LOC? If I had the premium sound with the trunk-mounted amp it would be sooo much easier... [&o]

I wonder if the cheap stereo installation kit from Crutchfield has instructions...

Well, anyways y'all can expect a nice and detailed write-up from me when all this is said and done with. If even one person can use it to lessen the frustration it would be worth all the trouble.

 

**[BUMP]**

Come on, someone has to have done audio on a 06 before~

 

see if you can take on cornner of it and start real easily prying it up and see if the clips pop lose/

use your hands as you can feel this way and also so you wont damage the pannel

I can honestly say this is interasting to me on how hard they make it to pull apart the dash LOL
but i dont have one i can look at so i cant help you find the screws etc.... Sorry

 

No problem man, Im very sure I found all the screws, I was on my back on my side and had my head in places I can only hope I'll be able to avoid in the future. lol! The only thing I couldn't see was the clips up front. But I think I'll try with a bit more force and with removing the shifter ****. That way if the dash suddenly jerks free I'm not destroying my gear selector in the process.

I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

 

good luck on this you are truly a pioneer on this one LOL