Tips on taking apart the dash of my D3

[ratta]

I have recently purchased an '06 D3 and cant find enough excuses to drive it. I am currently decking it out for a trip up north.

So far i have installed a wind cheetah rack with a 2.4m awning, a 2.4m 100m pipe for my fishing rods, a featherlite roof top tent. I have built a set of draws in the back to store my camp gear.

The last thing on my list is i want to re-wire the 12v cigi sockets in the dash to my aux battery, and also wire up an aux stereo socket for my ipod.

I have read all i need on where and how to wire the aux stereo socket, but was wondering if any one had any pointers on how and where to start taking the dash apart to begin the extra wiring???

any advice would be great

cheers
ratta

[bbyer]

I gather that you have installed a second battery in the engine compartment area and want to take power off the second battery and feed it to existing sockets within the 3.

You can, but that means disconnecting the existing wires going to the sockets you wish to connect to. Again, you can, but rather than mess with the existing wiring, I would wonder if it would not be better to add additional sockets and wire directly to them.

While you will have to mount the additional sockets, it might even be less work over alland a lot less tricky.

Also for me, I find that the 3 wiring is a lot more sophisticated than it first appears and I have got kind of afraid to modify it - even disconnecting stuff can cause one of the three computers to detect that something is missing. There are also power shut down circuits that can come into play without you knowing about it.

I have the Traxide secondary battery system installed and I just try to keep the main and aux batteries separate other than where the Traxide system joins them.

For what it is worth, just to get an idea of the complexity of the system, try to find the power window relay, (wiring diagram attached).

It should be easy, however the relay does not exist as we commonly know relays to be. Instead of it being a black cube, the relay is built into a printed circuit board along with a bunch of FET's etc and other relays and lays hidden behind the fuse box that is behind the lower glove box door. In other words, you never want to destroy the power window relay as replacement means changing unseen hidden printed circuit boards. Also on the same PCB, apparently there are various time delay circuits that shut power down to various whatevers as main battery voltage decreases. This is stuff I really do not want to learn about the hard way.

To answer the question as to how to pull the dash apart, try the search function using +dash + remove and similar; also +Traxide as there are a lot of posts related to pulling thick battery cables into the passenger area from the engine area - not a fun project either, and how to tear things apart; also +centre +console as guys are always pulling that out and that effectively tears the dash apart.

[gghaggis]

If you grab the radio/climate control outer plastic surround from the bottom and pull hard, it will unclip. You then remove the surround complete with air vents. From there you should be able to get to most of the wiring you need.

Cheers,

Gordon

[Colin Pedersen]

Gordon's advice is right, it also works for the side vents and kick panel under the drivers seat but beware, its very tight and the little clips have a tendancy to fly off. I spent 1/2 hour finding on from the kick panel!
There are several 12V power leads in the drivers side vent.
col.

[ratta]

Thanks guys, so much easier with a little guidence. I am in the process of wiring my aux stereo point and then will get onto wiring my 12v aux sockets.

I have made up a small "control panel" that will mount in the space where the HSE satnav would be. It gunna have a dual batt voltage monitor, two 12v cigi socket, 1 50amp rated neutrik socket(dont know if i will use this yet but i thought it might come in handy for maybe a 500w power inverter) and my 3.5mm stereo socket.


Cheers again

[bbyer]

I am impressed. It looks like it even has a light above.

[ratta]

haha i could claim it but its actually just the interior light shining down on the panel. Dont think it really needs a light the volt monitor is backlit.