Thanks fish, I almost posted a pic of my skinned knuckles lol.... To get the top of the fascia to fit I had to trim down the top clips. I'm still not happy with the quality and fit so I will probably go back to my custom one eventually.

I just have to connect up the cameras and the hard drive and find a way through the bulkhead for the amp power cable and I'll be finished with the stereo ?

I removed the 'so-called' glove box/tray, the panel below it and ran the cables then down the passenger side, up the B pillar, dropped the roof lining for fitting the sharkfin DAB/GPS/FM aerial. It's also a fairly good place to hide spare cable.

I'm around SE London if you fancy a meet up.

Fish

Me too, currently working in Orpington....

Looks even better in maps



I really don't miss my blue and me to tom lol

What fascia and radio is that? I was thinking of doing exactly this!

You're nabbing all the good ideas!

Seagull said:

Me too, currently working in Orpington....

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I'm about 10-15 mins from there.

Fish

Noxide said:

What fascia and radio is that? I was thinking of doing exactly this!

You're nabbing all the good ideas!

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The fascia is the one you will find all over eBay, bear in mind it is shiny and crap and you need to do loads of work on it. The stereo is great though, it's a pioneer ad120h which uses Apple CarPlay to link to my phone.

Seagull said:

The fascia is the one you will find all over eBay, bear in mind it is shiny and crap and you need to do loads of work on it. The stereo is great though, it's a pioneer ad120h which uses Apple CarPlay to link to my phone.

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That's awesome. I was eyeing up a double din, mostly because all the single (especially the single ones) are really Max Power-esque and really don't fit the car!

Fascia looks good if it's the shiny one I've seen! Can't believe that!

Seagull said:

The fascia is the one you will find all over eBay, bear in mind it is shiny and crap and you need to do loads of work on it. The stereo is great though, it's a pioneer ad120h which uses Apple CarPlay to link to my phone.

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So do the steering wheel controls and aux and usb inputs still work?

Mercky said:

So do the steering wheel controls and aux and usb inputs still work?

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The kit I bought included adapters that allow the steering wheel controls and original USB socket to work although the USB one needs even more fiddly work to be done so that can wait a while!
Track skip, source change and volume work from the steering wheel and you can pick up and drop a phone call from the buttons. Unfortunately the 'talk' button doesn't activate Siri, but it's easy enough to touch the screen for that.

Seagull said:

The kit I bought included adapters that allow the steering wheel controls and original USB socket to work although the USB one needs even more fiddly work to be done so that can wait a while!
Track skip, source change and volume work from the steering wheel and you can pick up and drop a phone call from the buttons. Unfortunately the 'talk' button doesn't activate Siri, but it's easy enough to touch the screen for that.

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ok thanks, yes I always find it frustrating not being able to activate Siri - the voice recognition is superior and it'll do everything you want from the weather to play music, make calls etc. I had a parrott in my old car and it activated Siri by default and it was great. Nice job btw!

I've managed to get some time to continue the work on the wiring, I did one easy little job and connected up power for the reverse camera.


Then started an absolute PITA job of getting a power wire rom the battery to the cabin to power the underseat subwoofer.... In other cars I have just found a grommet, poked a hole in it with a screwdriver and squeezed the wire through, however in the abarth engine bay all I could find was engine, ancillaries and skinned knuckles!
I did find a couple of bunches of wires went through plastic grommets in the bulkhead and disappeared below the scuttle so I removed the wipers, scuttle and the plastic and rubber trim that sits under the scuttle to expose a grommet held in by two 10mm nuts. I removed them but could not shift the bunch of wires, on looking inside (after removing the 'glovebox' i found they were all tied in very tight. I did however find a small grommet that had the bonnet release cable going through it that I managed to squeeze a 30amp cable into..... Not bad for about 4 hours work!

Oops forgot the reverse dam pic... I've set the yellow lines to match up with where I want the kerb to be whichever side of the road I park to avoid any more mishaps with my rims!

Just wondered, when you eventually come to sell the car, will you be reverting to the standard equipment!!! How long to dismantle and reinstate??

Noooooo! I'm loving the car too much!

....but seriously, any holes I have made are out of sight do I guess it would take a couple of days to return it to original as did my last one.....

Must admit when I saw the car at the NF picnic I could see what you had achieved and well done. I too have my car as a hobby but am not technical but concentrate on keeping it looking good on the detailing of bodywork.

Are you thinking of doing anything about a speaker upgrade?

Fish

DFish said:

Are you thinking of doing anything about a speaker upgrade?

Fish

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I have some alpine speakers that are supposed to fit the front doors and the under seat sub, I won't bother with changing the rears or tweeters..

Seagull said:

Here are a few pics to show how I made panels to fit to the back of the rear seats to cover up the cheap looking painted panels...



...And yes, I know the boot needs vacuuming!

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hi i love this idea, it really sets the rear off. Quick question, how did you fix the panels onto the seats?

Hi there, I used heavy duty Velcro, stuck on the metal seatbacks and stapled into the wood