Mercury Mountaineer / Ford Explorer Info

[jcage]

First Post:

I just wanted to share some of my AVIC-D2 installation experience on my 2002 Mercury Mountaineer (Same as a 2002-2005 Ford Explorer), for those looking for answers related to these two vehicles.

1. Used Metra Double DIN mounting Kit (eBay), flush mount, blended in perfectly even with the Mountaineer silver bezel, I suppose it will look even better on an Explorer black bezel.

2. Used Crutchfield cable harness to simplify things a little (cheaper on eBay).

3. VSS cable (gray/black) is right there behind the factory radio, even for my standard single CD Radio without volume control on the steering wheel (by the way the cable for volume/band is also there for future use, I will buy the controls and use the adapter)

4. Use the dimmer (orange) cable and not the lights on/off (orange with black), it will not change from day/night colors.

5. Lock-out hack works (Thanks to everyone here). Just connect the parking brake and empty pin on the AVIC-2 harness to ground. Works perfect to access the Nav functions while moving. No plan to test it for video soon.

6. Made a copy of the original East DVD, copy all backgrounds to the working BG folder, now I have all of them available. Also made my own JPEG Mercury Logo. Found the logo on dark gray with white background and edited to 500x240 and changed it to its negative. Now is a white on black logo which looks more elegant (also my Mountaineer is black). Used DVD Decrypter, UltraISO and Nero on a DVD-R Dual Layer, no issues.

7. Installed the back up camera ($80.00 with shipping on eBay), wide angle, night vision with infrared lights. Made a hole next to the license plate, flush mounted it. Perfect! (but hardest part, with a help of a friend: 5 hours, this part only)

Next step will be to connect the park assist sensor to the AVIC-D2 mute cable so it mutes the Music when in reverse (The Lincoln Aviator does it automatically).

Well, have fun and I hope this helps some people!

Some picture attached.

JC[/img]