Nav Hack on 2008+ M35/M45 & Adding DVD Player

[stjohnson]

This post is about how to watch DVDs in your 08+ M35/45.

To perform the nav hack on an 08+ M35 / M45, you have to disable the Vehicle Speed Sensor feed and the Parking brake feed into the Nav/AV control unit. This is a big change from the previous models of the M. This guide should help show you how. I’ve tried to make this as chronological as possible, but as with any project, you can tackle any of the jobs a’ la Carte.

There are two types of M35/M45’s, Ones with the Entertainment package, and ones without. You’ll know if you have the Entertainment package because you’re car will have a built in DVD player for the front screen. Mine does not have this package, so I have to install my own DVD player.

The good news is that the wires to cut are the same for both versions.
The bad news is that the wires you have to get to are behind the AV control unit, which is possibly the worst place for them to be.


Tools you will need:
*Extra long Philips head screw driver (MAGNETIC HEAD)
*Regular Philips screw driver (although I guess you could use the long one…)
*Torq #3 (I believe) screwdriver (see pic below)
*Electrical tape and Heat shrink tubing.
*Soldering Iron
*Some Cat5 cable you can cut up to get at the individual pairs within.
*Some masking tape (blue painters tape) to keep damage away from edges
*Compact wire strippers (Not the kind that are crimpers as well.. Do yourself a favor and buy a small wire stripper, you’ll be much happier)
*Small flat head to help remove harnesses
*X-acto knife to remove bur’s from drilling in plastic
*Needle nose pliars
*Scissors/razor and zip ties
*Jigsaw / hacksaw for the non-entertainment package folks (like me)
*Some misc screws (detailed below for the DVD installation part)


DISSASEMBLY

The first step is to remove the cup holder. Grab the rear of the cup holder. It comes out super easy. Tilt the door so that it’s halfway open (or closed for you pessimists) and reach your fingers behind the door and pull up. It pops right up and out.



Now remove the coin holder screws and set it back in the cup holder area.
Then, you need to remove the shifter cover. First put the car’s emergency brake on.

Now, don’t start the car, but put the ignition into “ON.” This allows you to shift into neutral. Press the brake after the car is in “ON” and you can shift.
Now, take the shifter knob off. This is easy also. Push the leather down away from the shifter knob, it separates pretty easily. Once you separate the leather from the knob, there is a metal snap ring that has a easy to grab onto notch that you can pull backwards with a pair of needle-nose pliars (towards rear of car) that will unsnap and once off, the shift knob comes right up and off.

Now, finesse the console cover back and up. It’s in there tight, but if you grab both ends and pull/wiggle solidly it will come back and off. I found myself shifting into manual mode to get the lever back farther, but you can fidget as needed.






Here's a closeup of the tabs so you can get a feel for the right direction to pull. This piece is installed very snug.



** By now, you should ensure you have the ignition off!

Now we have to remove the clock panel. Pull from the bottom and it comes away easily.



The ribbon cable connecting to this panel is not necessary to remove, but you can if you want to. I just tied a loop of tape around the rear-view and to one of the screw tabs on the bottom. It balances there just fine for me.



Now we’re looking at the control unit. There are 3 screws holding it in place, and 2 of them are very deep in the console. This is where you need your long screwdriver to get at them.



If you haven’t already done this, you might want to move the shifter knob all the way back. If needed, push down on the white button so you can do so without putting your foot on the brake.



Now pull the control unit out and take the torq screws out of the top unit attached to the A/V control unit. Then disconnect the connectors and tilt backwards and out of the way.




Now you're looking at the back of the A/V control unit, tilted down. This is the connector you're interested in.







Remove the connector shown, and the wires of interest are the green/double silver and pink/double silver.

Carefully cut open the BACK end of the wire bundle sheath and find these wires here. This puts your modifications away from the harness and is 1.) less visible to the naked eye that there has been modifications and 2.) gives you more wire to play with if you screw something up.



Cut these wires and have 2 pairs of your cat 5 cable ready. Basically, cut the sheath of a Cat5 cable about 6 inches, grab the wires inside and tear them out of the sheath. Pick your favorite 2 pairs and use them to splice into these wires.

I suggest you follow some logical connection here. I used the blue-white cat5 wire and the green-white wire to connect to the car facing end of the cut wires. Green cat5 to green, Blue cat5 to Pink facing the A/V controller. This is critical, so connect likewise, or remember what colors you used when you wire in your switch.
Don’t forget your heat shrink tubing! Put that on first before soldering. I also electrical tape wrapped because I’m just that kinda guy.


If you’ve got the built in DVD player, you’re set. Skip down to the wiring up of the switch and call it a day.

If your goal is only to regain Nav functionality while moving, you too can jump down to switch installation.

However, for those of us w/o the entertainment package and who want to watch DVDs, follow along and lets get our DVD player installed.
This would be a good time to follow the very detailed instructions of Ohmster in his write up regarding removing the glove box.

Read it here:
http://forums.freshalloy.com/showthr...t=video&page=4

The Glove box removal is a breeze. This is where we’ll mount our DVD player, there’s practically a place carved out there for us on the ’08. Will just take some small modifications.


Aux A/V Jacks

Next, we need to get our connection into the auxiliary audio/video inputs. They are located under the rear a/c vents. The rear air conditioner vents easily pop out. Grab the top corners beside the vents and pull backwards, then shimmy to the bottom and pull back. Disconnect the harness connecting the A/V and Power to the jacks and remove. (This is a stubborn connector, but keep at it, you’ll get it)






At this point, you’ll want to take your rear a/c console to your workbench and get situated because this part is a bit meticulous.

I used a pair of DB9 male and female connectors I picked up at radio shack for my connector into the inputs. Feel free to find another way, but this seems like a good way to me. You could also get an RJ45 plug/socket, but the DB9 has a lower impedance connection than the RJ45 does, so I used it.
Take each wire and cut and splice a strand of a Cat5 cable into it. Don’t forget to add your heat-shrink tubing before you make the final solder joint reconnecting the wires. This is what it looks like before:



And halfway done splicing in



Now solder on the pins for the DB9 connector to end of your splice. If you’re a novice solder’er, I suggest doing this part first on long stretches of patch wire. Then cut to a manageable length and solder onto your splice. The DB9 pins can be tricky if you’re not confident with a soldering iron.



NOTE: You’ll notice I have a splice into the DC power. I’m not using this run to power the DVD. I’ve spliced into the cigarette power adapter in the center console for power. This splice was actually not used. I was on a roll and it was late when I was doing this, so I did a little extra work on accident. The DB9 connector and the Cat5 wires won’t carry enough current to power your device, so I used some thicker wire from the other power jack.

Also note that I did not use Cat 5 for the Audio/Video run to the DVD. The Cat5 is just used as splice material. I used a commercial high-quality AV component cable to make the run from the jack’s to the back of the DVD. You’ll have to cut off one end of the cable and solder it into your splice. Cat5 will be a very noisy and poor way to get the signal from your player. I highly suggest against using anything but a good shielded cable to make the connection from DVD to input port splice.

Your audio/video feed can easily run under the armrest bin. Use a fiche or a metal coat hanger to find your path under the storage bin and pull the cable run through.

Now you can push the cable out over the carpet from inside and feed/push it concealed under the console plastic to the glove box area.





I added tape around the connector to isolate against vibration. Don’t forget to isolate wires and connectors as much as possible, you do not want to add a rattle or vibration which will only remove value from your $50k car.


SWITCH INSTALLATION


Now it’s time to start finishing up this project. I chose a perfect model switch from mouser.com, model 112-R13-136B-B. This is a dual pole, dual throw switch that mounts flush and through a round hole, so it makes mounting the switch excessively easy, since you just have to drill a hole. Plus it looks really nice installed. Like it was meant to be there.

If you used my colors, connect your blue and green wires to the center terminal of the switch. Connect the blue/white and green/white to the respective outer terminals on the same side. Then take a 6-8 inch jumper of blue and connect to the other terminal on the blue side. This will be connected to chassis ground, which is easily found via a screw just under the cup holder. DON’T FORGET YOUR HEAT SHRINK TUBING!! If you’ve been following my colors, here’s what the switch connection looks like.





This is where I chose to mount the switch (excuse the plastic shavings, haven’t vacuumed it out yet. Looks absolutely normal.





Tape down loose wire runs wherever possible. These things can rattle, so keep your wiring secure!


Time to test the switch. Flip it to normal mode (connecting the A/V unit to the original wire path. Make sure car is in park and turn ignition to “ON.” Release parking brake. Go into Aux mode and there will be no video displayed. It will say it’s in AUX mode, but no video or black screen.
Press the emergency brake and the screen should go black, indicating that video feed is up. Release the parking brake and the screen will go back to normal removing the video feed.

Flip your switch to engage the hack. The screen should go black indicating that the video is up again. If you have a portable video source, connecting it to your aux input jacks should play the video on the screen. Flip the switch back and the video should be gone but audio will still play. Congratulations, you’ve just installed the bypass! Go have a coffee/beer/juice and get ready for the last steps.

Now is a good time to finalize the center console and button it up. Push the top of the front panel up and into the dash and seat the bottom. Screw it down. Put the gear-shift cover on, secure it down with the coin holder plastic piece. Then the shift knob, and cup holder. You should have all your console back and your glove box ready to mount your DVD player.

DVD INSTALLATION

I chose the Accele vision DVD9530 player for my DVD from qualitymobilevideo.com. I like that it has a built in TV Tuner.. :-D . Along with this guy I purchased a 25Db powered UHF/VHF antenna, so we’ll see how well that functionality works.



This is the bracket that holds the IPod interface unit removed from its mount. It has a tab that nicely obstructs the DVDs mounting area. You can't miss it. We’ll have to cut it off after the bend to leave a clear space for the DVD.



Here it is after the cut with my hacksaw and metal blade.



The bottom of the dash, top of the glove box cavity looks like this. Infiniti has holes that are an almost perfect match for where aftermarket DVD players will need them. Not perfect, but pretty darn close:



You’ll need some metal self-taping screws, 10x1/2, to match the holes drilled. I picked some up at Lowes.



Now, onto mounting the drive. This is tricky, but with some patience and about 30 mins, you’ll get it. It’s a trial and error mount, check clearance, see if the covers fit and try again process. The mounting screws that came with the DVD player I chose are absolutely mind numbingly useless. They don’t even screw into holes, rather they are intended to screw into the vent slots through slots in the mounting bracket. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the screws were even close to the right size. They cannot be tightened enough to hold the bracket as tight as it needs to be held, and with vibrations in a car, would come loose in a few months. Worthless.




While at lowes, pickup some wood 8x1/2 tapered screws. These will fit the vent holes much better and will hold the unit firmly. Don’t use these until you’ve figured out where the bracket needs to be on the DVD player.



Draw an outline around the bracket on the DVD player with a sharpie, and remove from the car. Then remove the stock screws and securely attach the bracket to the DVD with the wood screws. Just be careful where you screw down that they do not interfere with anything inside the case. Mine didn’t.


The wiring harness that comes with the Accellivision is complex. Has speaker outs that are not needed for us. So prepare the harness out of the car. Cut the wires not needed and heat shrink the ends to insulate them.



The power adapter fits perfectly here via zip tie. Notice the top right of the picture where the DVD player provides switched 12v output to an external antenna. Will connect that to the antenna when it arrives.



Here it is after some trial and error mounted



Closeup of the right side and how I mounted. Used the same hole as the IPod interface used. Tight, and snug.



You can see the AV cables coming up from around the bottom of the molding on the left.



And they can be taped and secured snugly via zip tie behind the metal bracket here. Perfect fit.




All that's left is to re-mount the glove box and button everything up.

That's it. DVD Player, TV tuner, Nav Hack and a partridge in a pear tree...

Enjoy.

-steve

[Jonathan o]

Good job on the DIY writhe-up.

[YosM45]

I don't have an 08, but I got say, EXCELLENT JOB!
You came in with a goal of figuring this out, and you did.
This will help many new owners.



I never though about it, but I just hit me. It would be nice to add and additional AUX jack, or just the A/V section to the INSIDE of the center console.

This way I don't have the cable form my ipod running from the back seat to the front. I wonder how hard it would be to do this?

[stjohnson]

Wouldn't be hard. Three small holes in the bin for three of these: http://www.cablechick.com.au/cables/...ld-plated.html and splice into the jacks like I did with a decent a/v cable.

[stjohnson]

Some people have been asking for pics of the finished install. Here you go, it should look like below. The top right little black box is the IR Receiver for the DVD. It's got a piece of double stick tape holding it in place and I positioned it right up by the windshield.




One note, the glove box re-installation was probably the hardest part. It took me a good amount of elbow grease to get that thing back in there. It has to go under the door molding the right way, and needs to be snugged up just right. The addition of this DVD player pushes on the inner walls of the glovebox and it definitely was a snug fit going back in.

So the last thing on my mind, as I'm sure yours, is why in the h*ll are these still in my cup holder?

[FL_M35]

surely there is a simpler way to get to the speed sense wire than removing all that stuff......do you know where the other end of that cable is?

[stjohnson]

So, with enough research, I'm sure I could find another harness somewhere in the car that had these signals in it. But that's not really the point. There are certainly other devices in the car that use the VSS feed and the parking brake signal. The "BRAKE" light on your dash, or the speedo, for example. The A/V unit needs to be detached from these signals, but not other devices. You would not want to run the risk of detaching other devices from these signals by breaking the loop somewhere else. I don't have any schematics of the full wiring of this car, but it is pretty much guaranteed that these signals are tee'd and split in more places than one.

You can try to find these elsewhere, but I wouldn't run that gamble. As it is now, if I goof something up, I break the A/V unit. But I'm pretty much isolated from further damage due to where I spliced in.

[YosM45]

Originally Posted by stjohnson

Wouldn't be hard. Three small holes in the bin for three of these: http://www.cablechick.com.au/cables/...ld-plated.html and splice into the jacks like I did with a decent a/v cable.

What would you recommend as decent a/v cables to use to splice the AV lines into the new couplers?

[stjohnson]

Any cable that's not those generic ones you see everywhere. I'm talking about those a/v cables that come with your DVD players or VCRs or camcorders. The ones you can buy for 5 bucks at the store or radio shack, or the cheapest ones you see on the shelf in the video section of your favorite store. Those are crap. They're skinny, use very little copper and are hard to work with. I don't really have a suggestion for a "decent" cable, per-se, I bought mine at Lowes. They were double shielded high quality A/V cable, that cost about 17 bucks for 7 feet. It's hard to work with also, but hard because it's got so much shielding and insulation, which I'll take that problem.

I'm not a fan of the uber expensive Monster cables and the likes, either. I think there's a rule of diminishing returns there. Once you get a good cable (use your best judgement) there's only so much better the signal will travel through a incredibly expensive cable.

[stjohnson]

Just a quick 4 month follow up for those who may do this to their cars. I've had nothing but joy with this modification. But beware you need to mount the DVD player as far into the dash as possible. When I first did this I had it too far out, and the glove-box door would close, but very tightly, and that pressure against the glove box latch caused a squeak @ the latch. The only way to resolve was to remove the glove box again and push the DVD player a bit farther back to get a smidge more clearance. This was a bummer as I had to pull the box out again and make this modification.

Also, mount the player as high as it needs to be. If it's a bit low, it will push on the glove compartment's plastic and make a tough fit to get back in.

Also, the DVD playback on the screen is not ideal when playing widescreen movies. The Infiniti display will do a strange stretch to the video, to make it fit the screen's aspect ratio, causing a bit of a deformation on the movie, but that's a nit pick. You can still watch any movie. If you buy DVD's to play in the car, standard 4:3 movies actually play best.

Lastly, I thought I'd comment on the GPS. It seems that 9 times out of 10, the GPS map will update, albeit slowly, even when I leave the hack engaged. It's never 100% spot on, but if I'm driving down the tollway, it shows me on the tollway a few exits back. The compass however, will function unabated. What compass? The one that points the arrow in the direction you are heading. Even if the GPS is off, if you turn right, the arrow will immediately change orientation. So this is nice, if not a bit weird.

There has been 1 time when GPS satellite re-acquisition took longer than about 10 seconds. Most times, when you click the switch the other direction (back to normal) the map updates with only a slight delay.

But that's it. No real qualms with it and so far the Infiniti A/V system has worked well with it. Definitely get a DVD player with a TV Tuner. I have installed a powered UHF/VHF antenna on the rear window and have actually had moderate success. However, I will need to purchase a Digital tuner sometime soon. Googling for mobile Digital TV tuners is sparse.

[batmobile]

alright!!! you sir are the man..

SUBSCRIBED to this thread!

i'll be doing this soon

thank you

[chrisreth]

i'm ready to do it. I have the 2008 M45S with tech + advanced tech package and Dvd in the console. any side affects to any other systems when finished? any other advice you could hand me before i take it in later this week?

thanks

[chrisreth]

There has been 1 time when GPS satellite re-acquisition took longer than about 10 seconds. Most times, when you click the switch the other direction (back to normal) the map updates with only a slight delay.

does this mean that the update times for the gps are as close as before the mod was performed?

[Smitty0881]

Very nice. Wow. Great work. I will definitely be looking here for when I'm modding my ride.


-Smitty

[lawman12]

wow, sweet post... I think you should have added a bit more detail and you did not have enough pictures to follow.....





amazing post, thanks for the info!!!

[stjohnson]

Originally Posted by chrisreth

does this mean that the update times for the gps are as close as before the mod was performed?

Chris,
Without this mod installed, the GPS is pretty much always looking for sync if the car is moving, so as far as a stock car is concerned, it's pretty much always in sync and you never really notice it searching for satellites (under normal conditions). Since the NAV hack takes affects the GPS, now you have to deal with it being out of sync while you have your A/V system engaged.

This is not a deal breaker. It's a bit rough when your passengers are watching a movie and you need your NAV. Someone's gotta give. But otherwise, there is no real discernible consequence to engaging/disengaging the mod. Keep in mind this is only on satellite acquisition, not NAV operation. Once the car gets sync'ed to it's GPS satellites (usually pretty quickly), the NAV and Map update normally as before. This does not affect their operation.

[chrisreth]

one question, can you tell me what the switch is supossed to do? is it a on off on, or an off off type switch? and is it normally in the middle position? for someone like me who has the factory dvd in the console, where would i splice the wires to that?

also, i stopped by the electronics store yesterday and the switch part number you referred to above they think belongs to a "relay" instead of a switch. i will google the PN and find out.
im stopping by the car audio shop to get this done today. any help would greatly be appreciated.


thanks in advance


chris

[stjohnson]

the switch part number is correct. The datasheet says it all:

http://mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx...112-R13-136B-B

If this link doesn't make it through, goto mouser.com and search for that part number. It specifies a dual throw, dual position switch. on-on. (no middle)

[chrisreth]

Yes it WORKS ! THATS what i paid 55,000.00 for!!! worth the extra 175!

AS advertised. i just printed this out and drove to my local car audio shop and it took them about an hour!

BEtTER than Lenscrafters!!!!! email me for the SoCAL location that will do it.

chrisreth@yahoo.com

[BrettG]

Kudos to stjohnson for a very well written & detailed post. Acquired an 09 M35X with advanced tech two weeks ago. Read through his post a few times to make sure I was comfortable with undertaking the mod. St was kind enough to answer a few questions I had also.
So on Friday night I embraced the task and after 2.5hrs it was complete & functions as intended!!!! - Very pleased to have done this myself.

Did notice one issue though - unsure if I had incorrectly read the post but I had to change the order in which the wires attach to the parking brake function. First try the hack wouldn't work correctly - modified and voila works as intended.

[cobblecanyon]

You Sir are the man!!
Very nice!!

[trev0006]

This will be my new project, thanks for the instructions.

Originally Posted by stjohnson

Some people have been asking for pics of the finished install. Here you go, it should look like below. The top right little black box is the IR Receiver for the DVD. It's got a piece of double stick tape holding it in place and I positioned it right up by the windshield.




One note, the glove box re-installation was probably the hardest part. It took me a good amount of elbow grease to get that thing back in there. It has to go under the door molding the right way, and needs to be snugged up just right. The addition of this DVD player pushes on the inner walls of the glovebox and it definitely was a snug fit going back in.

So the last thing on my mind, tires sport cars as I'm sure yours, is why in the h*ll are these still in my cup holder?

[iH8RICERZ]

now this is how a DIY should be written....love the fact that you have a lot of pics with detailed descriptions!

[anhandrew]

Hi, I have an 06 base can this be done to it also? I see that one mine the slot that you have the dvd player is where it has a bluetooth module or something.

Thanks,

Andrew

[JaysM45]

Great write up first of all!!! I had my guy do the hack as mentioned (he used another switch temporarily) and it didn't work. After fussing with the wires a bit he got it to work but i have 2 switches. He bridged the two switches and that's when it started to work. As i said before this is all temp until i get the correct switch but as a result i have two issues that maybe you can help with:

1: no matter what position i put the switch in the dvd will play when in motion. The only difference is when switch is in position one i get a ""brake" light on the tach and a constant beep while in motion. When switch is in position 2 i get no light and the dvd plays still.

2: After this was all done i now have a yellow "key" indicator light on the tach. according to the manual and what others have reported on various spots on the web this light usually doesn't end too well but im hoping that won't be the case here. The light didn't come on during install nor after the first test run. I thought it was the key dying on me but not the case (as i tried with another key with the same result)

All in all my question is: does this build only work with the said switch and have you encountered any of the above issues? I have to say i am a little scared at what could be going down here; but then again it could be non-related. Hope to get a response soon. I'm going to try to grab the same switch as mentioned above or have my guy remove the mod altogether tomorrow to see if the symptoms subside.

[kys2000]

Is there a new part number for the switch used? I tried to search for that same switch used and it's not listed anymore

[phampau]

I just wanted to thank Steve for his time and effort to share this hack with us. The instructions were perfect and the nav works great as mentioned. The only issue i had was the Engine service soon light popped up after everything was plugged back in and the car started. I will be checking it out tomorrow to see what code it throws. Thanks again Steve!