Land Rover Defender, Pioneer audio installation.

We brought this Heritage Defender up to date with a modern double DIN Car Play head unit with DAB.

Installing a double DIN head unit into these vehicles is a very time-consuming job, you have to remove the old dash panel and remove all of the switches.

We had to then use the supplied re-location panel and template, so we cut the side of the dash and mounted the relocation panel there; this means extending some of the switch wiring as it is best not to overstretch the wiring. 

The new panel had been painted in the same colour as the vehicle (Heritage Grasmere Green) however the paint shop had put the paint on a little too thick, this meant we had to remove some of the excess paint from within the switch locations (best to mask these up prior to painting next time).

The Connects2 Fascia panel does the best to get the double DIN fit just right, however, if you are installing a double-DIN, you should choose one with a Short Chassis, ideally one of the Sony models.

There is a dash support beam that runs behind the heater controls and there is a mounting tab that sticks up a few millimetres too high meaning that the standard depth double DIN units push the fascia panel forward at the top, that just makes the installation a little more tricky. 

The customer had provided replacement billet metal control knobs, we installed these at the same time as the panel was off (the panel has to come off for this, once the Double DIN unit is installed, it's best to leave it there).

The end result was pleasing to the eye and the customer was very happy with it.