It's been a minute, what's been done?...

Where do I start.

I've been in a slump lately. Really don't feel like working on anything mod-wise. I have a few Saturns that I need to finish (repair, Fenrir install, etc.), a PSX that need's to be finished (Xstation install), and other miscellaneous things. I've been reluctant do to it because of work exhaustion, family, and tendinitis working it's way back into my hands. 

The Arcade 1up is complete, fully operational. There's just a few things that need to be buttoned up on it before I can move on. Again, life is becoming slightly overwhelming, so I'll finish it when I finish it.

I've been improving my office a bit...

I mounted my LCD TV to the wall. The studs were not centered where I wanted it, so I used some scrap wood from some old Ikea shelving to screw some lag bolts into the studs. I put some countersunk bolts on the back and secured the mount itself with some nuts. I used regular nuts, but I'm thinking that I should have used some locking nuts instead, but it works the way I have it now.

I installed a sound bar mount and secured that to the brackets behind the TV, just so I have more room on my shelf for consoles to display. The mount itself is an articulated mount, so I can pull it out and tilt it left or right to watch TV or play games on it. It's nice to have it up on the wall now. Next is to get my consoles set up.

We also inherited a truck ('99 Nissan Frontier) from my wife's grandparents. We lovingly call it "Grandpa Truck". The truck was completely stock. The stereo was stock, the speakers were horrible sounding, meh power...but the main thing is that it runs. I've been able to do a lot of recycling runs and large item deliveries with it.

But it still had a really bad stereo system...and I need some good music while I'm driving.

First thing invested in it was a new head unit. 

I invested in an Atoto F7WE. I bought a refurbished unit from eBay. It has wireless Android Auto on it, which is a big deal for us. I also ordered a wiring harness at the same time to make the install easier. It was a pretty straight forward install. 

The stereo worked great since we can now stream from out phones, but the sound was still awful. I ordered some new MTX component speakers. They were relatively inexpensive, and it had some installation parts for free.

The reason why the stock speakers sounded bad? The 20+ year old speakers were falling apart. There was no speaker surrounds to speak of! As I removed the door panel to install the speaker, all of the surround material fell out from the bottom of the door.

After removing the old speakers from the door, I realized that none of the holes on the speaker didn't align with the speaker mounts. The kit that came free with the speakers were of no help as well. The stock tweeter location had a special mount that didn't fit with the tweeters that came with the speakers. I couldn't find a way to install the tweeters in without drilling a hole in the door panel, which I really wasn't in the mood to do.

So I just used some zip ties to secure them to the old mount locations. Yes, I did drill some holes, but it was just in the old speaker mount housing. These speakers sound amazing! There still a lot of tuning that I have to do to make it sound even better, but that's for another day. 

I still plan on installing some rear 6x9 speakers and possibly a powered subwoofer as well. But again, that's for another day.

Interesting little tidbit about the speaker wiring in the truck. Because it's a extended cab truck, there are no "rear" speakers to replace. The speakers in the door were wired that the tweeters are the "front" speakers and the lower door speakers are the "rear" speakers. When I install the 6x9 speakers, I'm gonna have to do some of my own wiring from the head unit to the speakers. 

I have hopes and aspirations to go back to fixing those console repairs and installs soon. Stay tuned!