So for the past few months, I have had the idea of doing an EV conversion on my car when I get it and well I got it about a month ago so I think its time. Before I go in there and rip the engine out like a monster, I am first going to do some minor modifications to the car to get familiar with the workings of it. This entire process is really going to be a learning one so I really don’t want to bite off more than I can chew at one time.\
The first project is adding a Tesla style screen because no electric car is complete without a giant screen in the center console.
I am using a 12.7-inch screen from Phoenix Automotive. It was a little less than $600 but has Android Auto built-in plus adds Bluetooth and USB ports to my car which it is currently lacking. In theory, I can eventually modify this or create my own that will be custom to the car and has support for showing battery levels and motor speed but one step at a time! My friend Hani helped with first pulling out the existing center console. He did a radio update in his car just yesterday so he at least knew more than me. We turned off the car and wedged screwdrivers into the sides of the center console and just pried it off until it popped off from the clips holding it in. We then took pictures of all the wiring so we didn’t forget or plug something in incorrectly and then proceeded to unplug every wire we could find.
With the radio now out (along with the AC) we found our first problem. While the size of car radios are a standard either double din or single din the mounting holes and the wire connectors are not. Meaning we need a wire harness to plug into the existing proprietary connector that then separates it into individual wires. We could just cut the existing connector off but for sake of wanting to put things back together, that sounded like a bad idea.
Within five minutes of googling, I found a kit on Amazon that has all the wiring harness for the radio. Once these cables arrive I can then go through the process of figuring out what every wire does and making sure they correspond to the right location on the connector of the new radio.
Now for the second problem, mounting the radio to the car. The current radio is just face mounted and screwed into the center console panel. This is fine but the screws and holes are also not standard. Meaning I need to find angle brackets that allow the new radio which has holes on the side to mount directly to the center console panel. Luckily those angle brackets are also in the Amazon kit. They should be here Thursday unless I can find the parts I need at Best Buy and then I will be able to hopefully start following wire diagrams to convert the car’s cable to the connector for the new radio. Then I guess I just plug it in and pray that it works. There are other things as well such as the ignition cable so it only turns on when the car is started but I can’t worry about those until I know the radio actually works. I am also hopefully going to be posting about the process on youtube for anyone else who wants to do an EV conversion.
Devin Willis 