I was talking about it a few months ago and I'm almost done!! The idea was to change my MY99 Euro Impreza interior to house a double DIN unit. The only thing still missing are the brackets to hold the head unit in place, right now it just "lies" inside the dashboard.

The other problem I have is the small gap left and right (can be seen quite good on the pic, better than in reality actually) but I hope this is just because the head unit is not attached yet and still "pushes" against the dash surround plastic.

Anyway, if somebody has the same idea, let me know I'm glad to let you know what parts you need to do this conversion....next step is the Subaru Carbon interior....

 

hi audio g man,

That's ok, as you know I found the brackets and ordered them. Still waiting to get them.....

The head unit is a Panasonic CQ-VX7700D (is that the part number you want to know??). I got it from the Super Autobace in Tokyo at a special "campaign" price of 49800 yen (equals 450 Euro equals approx 290 GBP)

As you surely alrady know, it plays CD (R & RW), and Minidisc and has the coolest display you can find on this world...
Only drawback it cannot do Minidisc longplay

 

Hi Al,

That sounds like a very nice headunit.

I didn't see your post saying you'd ordered the brackets from the USA till just now.

Cheers

 

Excellent stuff! I'm going about things a different way, but may end up doing a conversion to get a screen in the car like that

 

chiark,

does that mean you still have this in-dash TV from Japan?
I thought you tried to sell it...

audio g man, (and to all other interested people, here's a resume of what I did so far, but feel free to email me if you need more details) :

yes I ordered the brackets, actually you need 4 brackets in total to do this converion, 2 for the Head unit and 2 for the heater controls. (and of course, the dash surround for the double DIN).
Other than that you have to relocate the 3 buttons (headlamp washer & adjuster and the bright button, which, in my opinion, can be simply disposed of with regards to usefulness). So, I moved the 2 headlamp buttons near the exterior mirror controller, they fit perfectly in the blanks there. If you really want to keep the Bright button you can move it to one of the blanks near the foglamp switches (again, perfect fit)
The Euro and UK car's heater controls are attached to some large metal piece (which makes the controls lie more "inwards") whereas all other models just have two small brackets on either side and also bring the controls more to the front, nicely adjusting with the non-euro dash surround. This is because the euro dash surround is much "thicker".

Below a picture, the parts you need to do this are

2 x # 11 (left and right for the heater controls, removing the orignal larger support bracket)

1 x # 14 (the double DIN surround)

2 x # 17 (left and right head unit brackets)

And be sure to have enough spare clips ready (the ones that hold the dash surround in place, you evtl. gonna loose some by removing the surround and of course they gonna fall down somewhere where you can NEVER find them again!!)

here come the pic

 

hi mate,

that's gone, but I'm planning on building some sort of screen in, whether it's from a libretto or something I actually buy I another question entirely

 

Excellent exploded parts view diagram, where did you get this from and is there one available for the centre glove box compartment?

 

Simon,

the exploded diagram comes from
www.1stsubaruparts.com
this is also the place I got the needed parts from.
Below is another pic of the upper dash area, but your Subaru dealer should be able to give you a much more detailed one than the one attached below (which does not show everything)
Here comes:

 

Thanx

 

Interested in doing this some time. Not to fit a double-DIN head unit, but to allow the use of the extra DIN space below the head unit so I can fit a display module maybe like the S.E.C.S system here.

What would be involved, i.e. what parts would I need to convert to double-DIN space but retain the single DIN head unit and give me an additional space? Any indication of prices for the parts?

Cheers.

 

Nice job matey And here's me fighting for ages to get the double DIN unit OUT of my Legacy

About the space on either side of the stereo. I fitted an in-dash DVD in mine, which was slightly smaller than DIN size (how stupid's that?!) What I did was make spacers out of MDF and then cover the ends in black insulation tape. Not exactly perfect, nor rocket science, but it looks trick and you honestly wouldn't notice Can recommend it as at _least_ a temporary "fix"

 

Thanks globbits, but I meant the space of the car's plastic dash surround, not the unit (where the space around is normal).

Anyway, this is an old thread and all my problems are solved now, actually I posted another thread after this one which shows the unit installed nice'n'clean, better than the photos above.....

 

Here the link to the thread where the conversion is completed

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/thread.asp?threadid=148990

 

Yo Al,

Why not try to bolt the headunit in using a home made metal bracket. I reckon it's worth a go.

What's the part no. of your headunit btw?

Cheers geez

I thought you were just fitting a stereo, You seem to have moved your steering wheel to the left side of the car too. lol

[Edited by audio g man - 10/12/2002 12:08:11 PM]

 

Since there are those who want to change to single from double din, does anyone want to swap their double din surround and mountings for a single din off an my98 at all?? Thinking of dvd and flippy tv again...

Cheers

 

just a thought on this, could you move the heater controlls down into the head unit din slot and put the head unit in the space left by them??

 

not sure about that, probably possible with some drilling etc..why would you want to do that?

 

excellent work, do you have a complete list of parts required to do this job, it "looks" like a straight swap but I dont think it will be, i'll be putting a standard sized head unit in and a SECS data monitor

 

Al - to raise the stereo up a bit for better viewing. I'm having problems finding the double din part in the UK, any ideas anyone?

 

Oh my...these are still the old pictures when I had this ugly gap around the dash surround....
UHF,
To do this, on the exploded view that shows the lower dash (the one above), you need
2*11
2*17
1*14
and even when installing the SECS I think you have to remove that s-shaped piece of metal inside the dash (to remove this one you have to disassemble your entire dash, I''m afraid). IT all depends of the depth size of the SECS

Si.t,

I do not know of any part to raise the ICE for better viewing, most double DIN units have a ''tilt'' button where you can flip the facia in 5 different positions (for the purpose of better viewing the completely useless screen)

 

Sorry for dragging this up again!!

If I'm installing this to use with a standard DIN radio in the bottom, using the existing bolt support thing at the back and adding a second DIN unit above the radio (something like a SECS so much less deep than a radio) would I need the #17 brackets? I'm guessing these are only used to support a double-DIN radio and would be useless in the configuration I described above.

Cheers.

 

IF i remember correclty, the #17 brackets had lots of holes in it, suitable to fit any equipment no matter how "deep" it goes.

No idea however how the SECS is build if it has many holes in the side to fit it in different location....

 

Mega old thread warning!

Its a shame none of the pics work.

Has anyone else done this?

 

+1

 

+2.. i`ve a nice dd screen with navi i`d like to put in the rb5, but i`m not bastarizing the dash

 

+3

 

For you guys interested in doing this recently.
I've been trying to source the heater controls and double DIN surround from a JDM car.
Spoke to a very helpful guy at Grade A Subaru who obviously knew his stuff. He said that the JDM heater controls are electric, in comparison to a UK cable driven set of controls. It may be different if you have a UK with AC, but he probably would have mentioned it.
So the other option would be to keep your standard controls, and use an Import double DIN surround. He said he has heard before that there might be a gap, which is mentioned in Albericks original post.
I'm going to bite the bullet and try it that way.

 

Keep us posted , as it would be nice to fit some gauges out of view in the lower half of that unit, as I dont need a ashtray etc.

 

I'll do my own thread hopefully tomorrow, as I got the part through today.
The ashtray still stays in the same place though.

 

I'm going it alone. See my work in progress here:

https://www.scoobynet.com/projects-4...onversion.html