Who wants to learn how to gut a tC? Lots of pics.
02-02-2005, 07:20 PM
#1
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Scinergy
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Newton, IA
Posts: 2,205
Who wants to learn how to gut a tC? Lots of pics.
This walkthrough is for taking apart a Scion tC to run wires for a stereo system. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the finished product.
Now, first, let me apologize that I don't have the pictures for making the door baffles, they will be uploaded soon. All the speakers that there aren't pictures of yet are from Elemental Designs, the sponsor of this forum. They make quality stuff, you should check them out, links are above and below all threads in this forum.
Now that you've forgiven me for not having speaker pics, on to the install.
First things first, to start out, I removed the plastic panel running along the door sill:
Before:
After:
Notice the little white clips with the wires in them, they'll be very useful later
Next, the passenger side kick panel. There's one little screw cap back there in the corner, isn't too tight so you can remove it with your fingers.
Before:
After:
There's a nice amount of carpet padding back there to block road noise, I don't know if I'm even going to deaden the floor of this thing. We'll come back to that wire bundle later...It's needed to run the speaker wire out to the door.
Well, after getting this far, you may want to install your headunit, as you should be running RCA's to the back.
Here's a picture of my center console with an installed headunit already:
Now, unfortunately, I went through two steps here. First one, would be to remove the shifter ****. That just unscrews and then you can pull it off. The second step is to grab the very end of the silver part of the console and pull lightly up on it. It will pop, but don't pull to hard to force it, the cigarette lighter adapter is clipped on and you might hurt the connections if you just pull.
That's what it looks like with no console covering the shift ****.
Next step is to remove the portion of the console that houses the climate controls. Just pull on the bottom of the piece next to the passenger seat belt light and the ignition kill light and it will just pop straight out. Slide your fingers up and repeat this until it swings down from the front. I found it easiest to do this step with the door that covers the HU closed. Once you swing the face down you'll see this:
That's the wire bundle that powers the climate controls. Just push in on the center tab and pull the bundle out. Set your console somewhere safe, I didn't and it fell and got some minor scratches
Now you've got this:
Notice directly above and below the edges of the HU there's a metal piece, this is the factory bracket for the HU. Luckily 2 holes in my Eclipse lined up with those as I couldn't find the dash kit anywhere locally, it's currently on order for me. You'll need a socket set to remove the top ones, but a regular phillips head screwdriver for the bottom.
This next image just shows where I wired the RCA's behind the HU. The space back there is cavernous compared to any car I've ever installed a stereo in before. Very nice for installing:
And now, on to the back seats. Yes, I'm random when I'm taking my car apart but there is a method to my mayhem. To remove the back seats, just pull up on the front corners of them. They're held in like any other back seats, just 2 little pins up front that pop when you pull. You'll have to pull kinda hard to get them to pop, but once you do, just pull the seat forward and it's out. Make sure you pop both sides before pulling forward, you'll bend the metal bracket in the back if you don't. You can fix it easy, but best not to screw it up in the first place.
Before:
After:
Now, the side panels in the door. There's a small plastic pin fastening them to the metal bar under the seats:
These are easily replacable if broken, but why break it in the first place ;) You just need a large flat head screwdriver. Push it under the plastic and pry slowly:
Now for the tricky part....the grocery hooks:
That's a low angle shot of the pesky little bugger. Notice the little pin thing in the middle. The trick to these guys is to push that in. I used a very small screwdriver. Once you do that, turn it 90 degrees clockwise:
After you do that, just pull on the hook and it comes out. Sorry this image is so fuzzy.
Now that you've got all the non plastic snapping type fasteners out of the door, just start pulling at the bottom straight below the speaker. I used the cup holders to pull on and that worked pretty well. Just go all the way around the gray plastic piece while pulling. Now, there's one really tricky fastener. It's at the bottom back corner, right behind the rear seat back. I found it easiest to fold the seats all the way forward, pop that one, then recline them all the way back. Then you can just slide the panel out around the seat belts.
Here's what you get:
See that speaker baffle? Same as the front ones, and very easy to make out of 3/4" MDF. I'll show that later when I get those pictures.
On to the next picture....the hatch area. This is what it looks like after removing all the liners:
Ok, so the things on the left and the right are just styrofoam but held in by some pesky clips. When they pop, it sounds like you're breaking something, you aren't. You can see them here:
They're the dark black things along the top side of the styrofoam. Just pull up by those, then slide the piece forward a bit while lifting. It tucks under the rear plastic piece. Of course, you could remove that first like I'll show in a minute.
Without the styrofoam. Just begs to be custom glassed and have a sub built into the corner, doesn't it. Look for those in the future ;)
Other side, same thing, pop the pins and pull it out, only a before shot here:
Now for that pesky plastic piece in the back:
All you do with this little guy is pull up:
Now for the side panels:
In that picture towards the top in the center there's a phillips head screw that you need to remove:
In the back of the panel is a tie down for luggage and other stuff:
That's a 10 or 14 mm head. Everything in the car is. It's nice. Just remove that and the metal piece comes out. The top has a small tab that slides into the metal, you need to pull out and slide down to get the tie down out.
Now if you look at this image again, there's another grocery hook type thing. If anyone knows how to remove it, please tell me. I tried, but didn't want to hurt it. That's why there are no pics of this panel removed.
Now, to remove the door panels for running the speaker wire. The little chrome ring on the door panel is where you start to remove it. Underneath, just pop your fingernails in there and pull. Be very careful when pulling this panel off....the very top clips on mine broke on both door panels, still work fine, but kinda sucks that they broke.
Once you get that off, you'll need to unscrew 3 screws, here's the first right behind where the chrome ring was:
These are just philips head screws again. They're really tough to start and make an awful squeaking sound. Plus, they're HORRIBLY long.
Now, one last screw here:
Yes, fuzzy pic, sorry. the little box in front of the lock flips open. You'll notice a small gap, put a very small flat head screwdriver in there and pry it open. It's hinged on the far side so don't pull to hard or you'll break it. Under that is another philips head screw that's much shorter than the previous 2.
Once you've got all the screws off, just start below the speaker portion of the door and pull. Move your way around the door pulling all the clips off. Once they're all off, just slide the door out, you'll need to disconnect the door electronics. I have pictures of that, but not uploaded yet as well. On the passenger side there are 2, drivers side has one. Both are just like the one behind the center console, just push the center and they pop out.
Now, set your door panel somewhere safe, time to run speaker wire.
Remember that bundle of wires behind the kicks from earlier. Here's where you use them:
You'll want to pull them out of their clips and pull the rubber boot out of the door. Notice in the pic above the wires are just dangling out of the door jamb, this is the easiest way to run them.
Now, that big hole there, slide your wire through it and out the car. The rubber boot you've just removed has slits in it. Slide your wire in there and push it through until it comes out inside the door. Normally you can use a coat hanger but I used the 4 strand 12 awg from Knukonceptz...huge stuff. Each door took me about 1/2 hour to run wire in. Once you've got enough wire through and inside the door panel, just pop the boot back into it's hole. You might need a screwdriver to get the pressure all the way around it.
Here's proof that I used the boot with that wire without hurting it:
It's a pain, but worth it, no drilling necessary. And if I can fit that wire through there, anything will fit.
Remember those white plastic clips with the wires in the doors, here they are again.
You can remove the carpet from them by pushing in slightly then pulling up like in this picture. Also, once you run your speaker wires/RCA's they fit nicely into the clips and the door sill still goes on. That allows you go get under the carpet where there's a perfect space to run 0/1 AWG power wire to the trunk. Of course, you'll need to remove the seat too.
Those little plastic covers just slide back and pop off, nothing too difficult
Now the bolts. There's 5 total, 14mm heads, pop those out then tilt the seat sideways, more wires to disconnect for the seatbelt. They also have a plastic fastener on the bottom of the seat. Tricky to remove and I broke mine. No biggie since you can just put the seat back and make sure the wire is OK when doing so.
Now, here's 2 pictures of the wire running from the back on the passenger side.
Notice in the second one how the wire is in the little clips. I love those things.
In that first pic, I just ran the wire around that rear panel in the trunk, you can pull the front out far enough even w/o removing the back clip to run wire back there.
Sorry I don't have anymore pics. They're going to be uploaded in the next couple of days.
If you have any questions on how to do anything to the car, ask away and I'll do my best to take a picture of the answer or explain it to you as best as possible.
And yes, I'll get pictures of the doors and final install soon.
Now, first, let me apologize that I don't have the pictures for making the door baffles, they will be uploaded soon. All the speakers that there aren't pictures of yet are from Elemental Designs, the sponsor of this forum. They make quality stuff, you should check them out, links are above and below all threads in this forum.
Now that you've forgiven me for not having speaker pics, on to the install.
First things first, to start out, I removed the plastic panel running along the door sill:
Before:
After:
Notice the little white clips with the wires in them, they'll be very useful later
Next, the passenger side kick panel. There's one little screw cap back there in the corner, isn't too tight so you can remove it with your fingers.
Before:
After:
There's a nice amount of carpet padding back there to block road noise, I don't know if I'm even going to deaden the floor of this thing. We'll come back to that wire bundle later...It's needed to run the speaker wire out to the door.
Well, after getting this far, you may want to install your headunit, as you should be running RCA's to the back.
Here's a picture of my center console with an installed headunit already:
Now, unfortunately, I went through two steps here. First one, would be to remove the shifter ****. That just unscrews and then you can pull it off. The second step is to grab the very end of the silver part of the console and pull lightly up on it. It will pop, but don't pull to hard to force it, the cigarette lighter adapter is clipped on and you might hurt the connections if you just pull.
That's what it looks like with no console covering the shift ****.
Next step is to remove the portion of the console that houses the climate controls. Just pull on the bottom of the piece next to the passenger seat belt light and the ignition kill light and it will just pop straight out. Slide your fingers up and repeat this until it swings down from the front. I found it easiest to do this step with the door that covers the HU closed. Once you swing the face down you'll see this:
That's the wire bundle that powers the climate controls. Just push in on the center tab and pull the bundle out. Set your console somewhere safe, I didn't and it fell and got some minor scratches
Now you've got this:
Notice directly above and below the edges of the HU there's a metal piece, this is the factory bracket for the HU. Luckily 2 holes in my Eclipse lined up with those as I couldn't find the dash kit anywhere locally, it's currently on order for me. You'll need a socket set to remove the top ones, but a regular phillips head screwdriver for the bottom.
This next image just shows where I wired the RCA's behind the HU. The space back there is cavernous compared to any car I've ever installed a stereo in before. Very nice for installing:
And now, on to the back seats. Yes, I'm random when I'm taking my car apart but there is a method to my mayhem. To remove the back seats, just pull up on the front corners of them. They're held in like any other back seats, just 2 little pins up front that pop when you pull. You'll have to pull kinda hard to get them to pop, but once you do, just pull the seat forward and it's out. Make sure you pop both sides before pulling forward, you'll bend the metal bracket in the back if you don't. You can fix it easy, but best not to screw it up in the first place.
Before:
After:
Now, the side panels in the door. There's a small plastic pin fastening them to the metal bar under the seats:
These are easily replacable if broken, but why break it in the first place ;) You just need a large flat head screwdriver. Push it under the plastic and pry slowly:
Now for the tricky part....the grocery hooks:
That's a low angle shot of the pesky little bugger. Notice the little pin thing in the middle. The trick to these guys is to push that in. I used a very small screwdriver. Once you do that, turn it 90 degrees clockwise:
After you do that, just pull on the hook and it comes out. Sorry this image is so fuzzy.
Now that you've got all the non plastic snapping type fasteners out of the door, just start pulling at the bottom straight below the speaker. I used the cup holders to pull on and that worked pretty well. Just go all the way around the gray plastic piece while pulling. Now, there's one really tricky fastener. It's at the bottom back corner, right behind the rear seat back. I found it easiest to fold the seats all the way forward, pop that one, then recline them all the way back. Then you can just slide the panel out around the seat belts.
Here's what you get:
See that speaker baffle? Same as the front ones, and very easy to make out of 3/4" MDF. I'll show that later when I get those pictures.
On to the next picture....the hatch area. This is what it looks like after removing all the liners:
Ok, so the things on the left and the right are just styrofoam but held in by some pesky clips. When they pop, it sounds like you're breaking something, you aren't. You can see them here:
They're the dark black things along the top side of the styrofoam. Just pull up by those, then slide the piece forward a bit while lifting. It tucks under the rear plastic piece. Of course, you could remove that first like I'll show in a minute.
Without the styrofoam. Just begs to be custom glassed and have a sub built into the corner, doesn't it. Look for those in the future ;)
Other side, same thing, pop the pins and pull it out, only a before shot here:
Now for that pesky plastic piece in the back:
All you do with this little guy is pull up:
Now for the side panels:
In that picture towards the top in the center there's a phillips head screw that you need to remove:
In the back of the panel is a tie down for luggage and other stuff:
That's a 10 or 14 mm head. Everything in the car is. It's nice. Just remove that and the metal piece comes out. The top has a small tab that slides into the metal, you need to pull out and slide down to get the tie down out.
Now if you look at this image again, there's another grocery hook type thing. If anyone knows how to remove it, please tell me. I tried, but didn't want to hurt it. That's why there are no pics of this panel removed.
Now, to remove the door panels for running the speaker wire. The little chrome ring on the door panel is where you start to remove it. Underneath, just pop your fingernails in there and pull. Be very careful when pulling this panel off....the very top clips on mine broke on both door panels, still work fine, but kinda sucks that they broke.
Once you get that off, you'll need to unscrew 3 screws, here's the first right behind where the chrome ring was:
These are just philips head screws again. They're really tough to start and make an awful squeaking sound. Plus, they're HORRIBLY long.
Now, one last screw here:
Yes, fuzzy pic, sorry. the little box in front of the lock flips open. You'll notice a small gap, put a very small flat head screwdriver in there and pry it open. It's hinged on the far side so don't pull to hard or you'll break it. Under that is another philips head screw that's much shorter than the previous 2.
Once you've got all the screws off, just start below the speaker portion of the door and pull. Move your way around the door pulling all the clips off. Once they're all off, just slide the door out, you'll need to disconnect the door electronics. I have pictures of that, but not uploaded yet as well. On the passenger side there are 2, drivers side has one. Both are just like the one behind the center console, just push the center and they pop out.
Now, set your door panel somewhere safe, time to run speaker wire.
Remember that bundle of wires behind the kicks from earlier. Here's where you use them:
You'll want to pull them out of their clips and pull the rubber boot out of the door. Notice in the pic above the wires are just dangling out of the door jamb, this is the easiest way to run them.
Now, that big hole there, slide your wire through it and out the car. The rubber boot you've just removed has slits in it. Slide your wire in there and push it through until it comes out inside the door. Normally you can use a coat hanger but I used the 4 strand 12 awg from Knukonceptz...huge stuff. Each door took me about 1/2 hour to run wire in. Once you've got enough wire through and inside the door panel, just pop the boot back into it's hole. You might need a screwdriver to get the pressure all the way around it.
Here's proof that I used the boot with that wire without hurting it:
It's a pain, but worth it, no drilling necessary. And if I can fit that wire through there, anything will fit.
Remember those white plastic clips with the wires in the doors, here they are again.
You can remove the carpet from them by pushing in slightly then pulling up like in this picture. Also, once you run your speaker wires/RCA's they fit nicely into the clips and the door sill still goes on. That allows you go get under the carpet where there's a perfect space to run 0/1 AWG power wire to the trunk. Of course, you'll need to remove the seat too.
Those little plastic covers just slide back and pop off, nothing too difficult
Now the bolts. There's 5 total, 14mm heads, pop those out then tilt the seat sideways, more wires to disconnect for the seatbelt. They also have a plastic fastener on the bottom of the seat. Tricky to remove and I broke mine. No biggie since you can just put the seat back and make sure the wire is OK when doing so.
Now, here's 2 pictures of the wire running from the back on the passenger side.
Notice in the second one how the wire is in the little clips. I love those things.
In that first pic, I just ran the wire around that rear panel in the trunk, you can pull the front out far enough even w/o removing the back clip to run wire back there.
Sorry I don't have anymore pics. They're going to be uploaded in the next couple of days.
If you have any questions on how to do anything to the car, ask away and I'll do my best to take a picture of the answer or explain it to you as best as possible.
And yes, I'll get pictures of the doors and final install soon.
02-03-2005, 02:35 PM
#14
Former Sponsor
SL Member
Scinergy
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Newton, IA
Posts: 2,205
Ok, just to let you guys know, this probably won't get updated until Monday, busy weekend for me. But I'll actually be fleshing it out a bit, showing how to run the power wire, it's kinda tricky ;)
Also, sound deadened doors, both eDead v.3 liquid and v.1 SE mat coming up(You can pick it up from Elemental Designs, banners all over this forum, check it out, 'cuz it's just as good as other stuff and a lot cheaper). Might even do the back walls of the car, but the floor is staying untouched
Also, sound deadened doors, both eDead v.3 liquid and v.1 SE mat coming up(You can pick it up from Elemental Designs, banners all over this forum, check it out, 'cuz it's just as good as other stuff and a lot cheaper
). Might even do the back walls of the car, but the floor is staying untouched
