GROM USB/IPOD/Bluetooth adapter installation into Honda Accord 2007
Disclaimer: We are not liable for any damages acquired during your installation process. If you are not sure in your ability to perform the installation please seek the help of the professional.
- This article is made possible by Amarjeet, GROM Audio customer.
- You will need: Flat head screw driver (wrap it with electrical tape to prevent scratching the trim pieces); Phillips head screw driver; a drill and a spade drill bit to make a hole in the center cubby or anywhere else you will be feeding the wires through; 3/4" rubber grommet to cover the hole and provide a nicer finish
- Let's start with a picture of the only thing I needed to buy extra for this project, the rubber grommet. I picked this up from Canadian Tire for about 30 cents. The size of the hole and the thickness of the grommet turned out to be perfect for the cubby and to feed the biggest cable through, which was the USB connection.
- To begin the installation, I pried open the gear shift trim like so:
- Do this all the way around the gear shift trim, being careful not to break any clips or damage the trim.
- Once the gear trim is off, disconnect the seat heater switches. There is a small locking mechanism you will need to press. This is easy to do, so you can't really go wrong in this step.
- Oh and some people may choose to unscrew the shift knob and remove the trim entirely, but I elected to just pull the trim over the knob and leave it there. I didn't really get in the way.
- Next, remove the "Not an ashtray" rubber lining and then pry open the small compartment. I figured out later you can also push it upwards a bit from the inside to make it easier.
- You should now have access to the following two screws. Remove them and set them aside (cup holders to make it easier).
- Disconnect the 12v power socket from the piece you just took off:
- Next, remove the two screws holding the cubby in
- You should now be able to pull the cubby out easily. If you can't get a good grip on it, use one hand to pull from the bottom, and put the flathead screw driver in from the top and pull outwards. Once it is out enough, you can use both hands to pull. I was expecting some trouble in this step but it was fairly simple!
- You should now have a clear view to the interior and the treasures behind the cubby. This is where you will find the external CD changer port. If your car doesn't already have an external CD changer or XM, there should be nothing connected to the port. Go ahead and plug in the vehicle specific harness that comes with the Grom interface
- You should take this time to test out how everything is working and familiarize yourself with how the Grom interface works. Once you are satisfied, continue on to drilling a hole into the cubby (or anywhere else you may want to feed the wires to). (Note from GROM - GROM Audio does not recommend drilling the holes if you are not sure. There might be the hole already available to take the cables out.
- Find a good place in the cubby to drill a hole, making sure it does not interfere with the movement of the door or the mechanisms on the side. I chose to drill towards the back of the box on the top. Towards the back around the bottom or sides would also have been good choices in retrospect.
- Drill a hole as big as you need for the wires. I chose a 1 inch spade drill piece, with a thick grommet that had a 3/4" opening. This was big enough to feed the USB cable, AUX cable, iPod cable, and the cable for the mic from the bluetooth kit, without the grommet actually installed on the cubby. Once it is installed in the cubby, the grommet was tight enough to not let any of the wires go back through. To remove or add wires again, you will need to take the grommet out of place again so that it is flexible enough to work with. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the hole actually being drilled, but here is a picture of the grommet installed on the cubby, with 1 wire passing through:
- Find a good place to mount the Grom interface, and use zip ties if necessary to secure the extra wires around the spaces behind and around the cubby. You can be creative with the placement of the wires, but make sure to temporarily reinstall the cubby periodically to make sure nothing is interfering with the door opening mechanism of the cubby. I installed interface to the left of the cubby, away from sharp objects or metal as you can see in the following picture. I had the previous unit zip tied but it doesn't really move from that position, so I decided not to do it this time. You can also see the new bluetooth dongle to the left (more on that later).
- You can reinstall everything in reverse order once you have rechecked all connections, secured all extra wires (leave a bit extra loose in case you ever need more), and made sure nothing is interfering with anything else.
- Enjoy hassle-free music and convenience!
- Added bluetooth, fed the mic wire through the cubby as well (thought about putting it up on the headliner, but it seemed like too much work and I wanted to be able to hide everything out of sight easily by simply closing the cubby door).
- Mic installed. Grom includes a small piece of double sided 3m tape which is very easy to overlook/lose. I lost it as well but found it later!
- Let's rock!
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