TacoBill

It's not that bad. If you pulled your radio out before, that's more than half the job.

Only 'special' tool I used was the mechanical fingers to guide the antenna wire down from the a-pillar to below the dash.

rrobello

very cool, I dont have a lot of experience with car electrical/audio but have fudged my way through it in the past so I figured this should be easy enough....I HOPE! lol. Was hoping to get the ignition button as well and do it at the same time though, is getting the center console apart a PIA?

and Bill I love what u did with ur stereo setup, can u PM me with the details of the cost if you dont mind, I was looking at doing an indash car computer but am not sure if its best to go that route or just a pioneer or equivalent setup.

TacoBill

Not hard at all. Only thing to be careful with is unplugging those 2 electrical connectors behind the AC controls. The passenger side one (with the lever) can break off easily if you're not careful.

PM sent.

07alloygt

I did this modifcation last night. It was great, except that my antena would not leave the Shaker head unit. It's ok, because I'm getting a new head unit soon anyway.

For anyone who has an 07GT, the blue/yellow wire that is referenced for a 12V source doesn't exisist. However, Odiaz's write up with the 12V source right off the head unit harness works great. It should be colored orange with a yellow stripe and is pin number 2 on the LARGEST (rectangular) harness connecting to the Shaker head unit. http://www.cherod.com/mustang/HowTo/Shaker500.pdf

SSilver0702

Just curious, but has anybody tried mounting the antenna in the a-pillar? I bought an antenna delete from v6mustangstuff.com awhile back to put in my 03, but that was traded in for my 07. I'm not sure if this will effect reception or not.

07alloygt

I don't see why not. I had a small XM antenna mounted there on my old Mustang. Worked great!

JedCranium

I'm about to remove the A pilar for my radar. I found a vid link:

http://www.speedofsoundllc.com/i/Ins...%20Install.wmv

Jed

SSilver0702

First, wanted to thank tacobill for an awesome write-up. Couldn't have made it any easier...Secondly, wanted to ask for some help. Not sure what happened, but for some reason my ac/heat *****, heated seats, and defroster buttons now don't work. I'm certain i put the two plugs back in at the bottom connecting to the controls. Could i have blown a fuse? Any suggestions would be great. I guess I'll be taking everything apart again tomorrow to find out for sure if I reattached the plugs (yeah, i know I should have checked that it worked before puttting it back together...was only concerned with making sure I had power to the antenna and that the radio still worked ).

Thanks,
Blake

TacoBill

Blake, definitely check the plugs behind the A/C controls are securely plugged back in, one 'clicks' in, and the other is secured with the flip up/down grey lock lever.

SSilver0702

for some reason the one with the grey lever was a little difficult to get back in...seemed like it went in. the grey lever rotated up and locked into place. I'm guessing its the easier of the two on the driver side...figures. I'll give an update tomorrow. thanks for the quick reply tacobill.

SSilver0702

Well, it turned out to be the plug with the grey lever on it. I wasn't sure before if it had went all the way in, but the lever engaged and locked into position. Tacobill, did you have to use a chrysler adapter for your antenna? For some reason, my skaker 500 did not have the typical Motorola plug found on most radios.

TacoBill

My Shaker headunit uses the typical Motorola plug. Looks like Ford changed the antenna receptacle on the new 500/1000 units.

Glad you found the problem.

Francis

Hey guys

I just deleted my stock antenna (had the bodyshop fill in the hole) and wanted to update the thread.

First, thank-you very much tacobill and odiaz for the writeups.

Odiaz' trick with folding up the glove compartment and the pin2/J1 tricks worked like a charm.

Some info to add:

For grounding the antenna, I opened up my dome light, and couldn't find the ground screw mentioned in Odiaz' guide. I have an '07, maybe they changed it. Anyways, I undid the passenger side visor, and wrapped the ground to the screw securing the visor to the roof, that seemed to do the trick.

Also, I drove around for three weeks with the antenna wiring, but no antenna. Surprisingly, the radio reception is not that bad considering there was no antenna. Not great, but I could get my regular radio stations, but not in stereo.

Instead of the Metra antenna, I used the Hirschmann antenna I read about in another thread here. People who've tried both seem to say the Hirschmann works better, and it's so small it's almost completely covered by the roof lining. (After I installed it, you'd never notice it was there unless you were specifically looking for it.)

As far as I can tell, it works just as well as the full mast stock antenna. It could be better, it could be worse, I don't have a good reference to tell you.

One note: I don't know about the Metra antenna, but I wouldn't bother putting wiring up the power in the Hirschmann. I tested it with a weak FM station with the antenna plugged in, but with and without power. It didn't make a lick of difference. I actually took apart the antenna and put a multimeter on it just to make sure the antenna was powered properly.

Looking at the circuitry, I think all the "active" part of the antenna does is boost and filter the signal, and I suspect the stock Shaker500 already does that.

Thanks