So, updates...
I have spent time/money recently addressing things that I felt I needed rather more than wanted. I was fed up of the crap sound system in the Disco, as I was just running front door speakers. I thought "hey, it's only an offroader" but tbh I decided I wanted to have some more fun in the car too so some sounds would be good!
Thus:
Yep, you guessed it, a cheeky 10" subwoofer! I picked up the sub cheap on eBay, and the rest of the bits I had lying around in the cellar from previous installs.
Cost me about 50 in total and sounds great!!
I also added some rear speakers in pods to match up with the front door speakers:
The mid speakers are powered by the headunit, and with the bass turned down and then the amp for the sub set accordingly, the sound is remarkably good! I spent a lot of money on a system in a car once, spent ages setting it up properly, and to me it didn't sound a grand better than this cheapo job. As such I'd recommend it to anyone!
Wiring wise, i didnt want to run wires to the back of the car - because the floor area gets a beating. I could have run them in the roof, but instead picked up power from an unused auxiliary power supply provided for the White towing socket. This was in the rear corner blanket off, and has it's own fuse in the fuse box. Ideal supply for my small amp! I also got a speaker to phono converter from Halfords, so I could link up to the rear speaker wires to provide a signal for the amp, rather than having to run a phono cable from the head unit.
Otherwise, the heaters in a 200 shape are pretty average, and cos mine had been often filled with muddy water, they were even worse still. I decided to fit a heated screen from a 300 shape. This turned out to be quite a PITA because the 300 screen is taller but narrower, too narrow to bond into a 200 but too tall to use the 200 rubber.
In the end I had to hammer down the fitting lip atop the firewall, and grind about 1/4" off it in the centre 50%. With a lot of swearing me and my bro eventually squeezed it in with my original gasket. We then emptied a tube of sealant all around the seal, to take up the gaps. I think I have 1 tiny leak, which i am in no way bothered about!
I had to make up my own wiring, so I got another 200 heated rear window switch to use, and a warning lamp from Halfords:
The heated screen has a left and right circuit, so I made up two separate circuits, one for each side. The switch connects to both relays, which are separately fused. I first fitted 15A fuses, which did not blow, but got so hot in use they melted themselves, as did 20A, so I settled on 30A per side which seems to work just fine. Power is supplied directly front the bulkhead fitting where live enters the cabin from the engine bay.
I was working on a Jag X Type the other day with a faulty screen, this was just a corroded connector, but I noticed that ran 30A fuses each side for a similar size screen, so i was happy that the Disco was probably ok too.
Heres the relay setup:
And the final problem was the handbrake, generally being useless **** due to mud, and me being fed up of rebuilding it all the time. Hence I completed my saving and finally plumped for an X-Brake.
I just fitted it this evening, took me two hours approx. Fitted fine with no probs, mud in the eye was the worst thing.
Far better so far cos it actually works, and doesn't jam on!
So that concludes my story for today, hope I didn't bore everyone, maybe some or you found it interesting!!
Cheers, sam.
