Installing aux input non-nav, non-DSP - novice's experience

[exsterminator]

Thanks to X5 Meister's replies to my PMs and other phenomenal resources on the site, I undertook the installation of the BMW OEM aux input cable for my 2004 X5 4.4 non-nav, non-DSP last night. It took 1.5hrs - longer than most others reports I had read in preparation - mainly because this was my first time messing with the electrical components of my beloved car and because there was some trial and error (a lot of error). However, I am happy to report that I now have a super-stealth aux input and it works brilliantly!

I used this great guide to help me remove the radio, CD player and climate control facia:

http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/...bluetooth.html

Due to the routing of the aux to my arm rest storage bin, I stopped following the instructions once it came to Step 4 about removing the trim. Observations on removal of components:

Radio - very straight forward, pictures in guide and description perfectly explain how to remove the cable
CD - I cannot stress quite how long you have to loosen the screws for to get the unit out, it seems to go on forever! Unclipping the aerial and radio harness are also well explained.
Climate control - very simple, follow the instructions

I wanted to keep the input jack as discrete as possible so chose to put it in the armrest storage bin. This meant removing the plate around the gear selector and the leather handbrake boot, both of which were done by gently prying and levering along the outsides of both with my fingers to undo the clips. The running of the cable took a while as some of the spaces are quite small but it went as follows:

Harness sitting right next to radio harness from CD player, down past where the radio and climate control go, feeding down on the left as you look at it and through the gearstick gap, running it from there through to the handbrake space and then pulled the slack up to keep the jack end hanging out by the storage bin. There is plenty of wire to run it this far, in the end once all connected there is probably around 6-8" of slack.

This next part is where the time consuming part came and where mistakes aplenty were found: installing the new harness into the radio harness. Through a combination of tiredness at the end of a long day and my brain not functioning well, I found it very hard to understand the instructions that came with the OEM unit. The radio harness in my car already had the big black clip so all I needed to do was remove the 3 wires from my aux input unit black clip and then feed them into the appropriate holes on the harness clip. The instructions told me to do this but never made clear what black clip they were referring to. Whenever it talks about them, it refers to the one you have attached to the thing you just bought! Take the black clip out of the radio harness - the one that only had 2 wires running into it - and add the 3 wires from my aux input unit into it as diagramed. Then replace it back into the harness. Sounds simple but took me ages. Also, make sure that the input wiring runs next to the radio harness and will go back into the CD player through the same bracket hole.

Once this was done, I got my drill and drilled through the front of the storage bin from the handbrake space. There are 2 pieces of plastic to drill through: the frame and the bin itself (which is removable). I used a drill bit that was the same size as the threaded jack end for this. Then I removed the bin and drilled a hole slightly larger in the frame, one that was the same size as the silver colored base below the jack because the threaded head is not long enough to make it through both bits of plastic. Once this was done, I fed the jack through the holes and screwed only the round, threaded washer on to lock it into place.

Once this was completed, I pulled some of the slack out of the jack and tied it up near the harness end. All that was left was to test it out before screwing everything back into place - it worked perfectly first time out. Just worked my way back towards the front of the car, replacing things as I went: handbrake boot, gear selector plate, climate control, CD unit, radio.

I am very pleased with this minor modification and hope to launch into the sub box in the next few months.

I will post up some pix this evening.