I set out last night intending to just see how the Stereo would look in the hole and ended up going a little bit farther. BMW's go together very similar to old square body chevys.... just fit a little better.... Wife was rushing me so I missed pictures of running the RCA cables to the back. That was the biggest part of the job last night.

There is a minimal amount of trimming to get the double din stereo to fit. Basically two very small tabs on either side to remove a cross piece. Even after removal the factory setup still goes back in and is secure!







There is just enough room for the new unit to squeeze between what is left, actually, it fits perfectly and is very secure. I pushed it in and heard a click, and a click.... Like it was secure... Since I was only in the mock up stage I thought, crap, how did it just lock? Turns out there are tabs that do secure the mounting brackets to the edge of the dash, very slick and very secure....

Once you get the unit in all the way you need to use a screwdriver or similar prying tool on the outside edge to remove the unit. You can sort of see it here, I've got the screw driver inserted as it would be if the unit was installed.



Here's the Kenwood fully clicked in, the bezel isn't fully clicked in, didn't want to fight that till I was done. I'm surprised that it looks as good as it does.




After I did that I decided to run the RCA's to the back.... That was a chore! As I said, didn't take too many pictures....

1. Fold rear seat down and remove side bolster on the c-pillar.
2. Fold seat back up and pop seat bottom up, don't need to completely remove.
3. Starting at the rear pull up rear door sill plate, four retainers holding it in place.
4. Move seat forward and remove rear bolts, 16mm I think.
5. Remove front door sill and move seat back to the rear.
6. Remove caps from front seat nuts and remove nuts, let seat tilt back.
7. Remove foot rest by inserting screwdriver, or similar, into bottom and prying upwards.
8. Remove two smaller bolts from foot rest.
9. Remove hood latch lever using torx and other torx screw holding kick panel in place.
10. Remove twisting locking clips from shroud under steering column.
11. Remove three screws on forward edge of plastic cover.
12. Remove screw holding air vent plenum to the plastic cover.
13. Remove screw on front edge of upper console panel.
14. Pry from bottom of middle, the rear end has a tab that fits under the rear piece of trim.
15. Pick up front seat and move it forward so you have access to b-pillar.
16. Starting from the bottom pry b-pillar trim off.

That's the removal process so you can get the RCA's or anything for that matter from the center dash stack, under the steering column, down the front of the kick panel, in the door sill gutter, around the b-pillar, up the rear seat and through rear sail panel to the stereo door in the rear compartment.

The job should take you about 2-3 hours start to finish.