Knocked out a few quick and easy tasks. The rear view camera, which is really a complete license plate bracket, was mounted. Just have to solder the lighting wires for the license plate led lights that hold the bracket on and this will be done. After this I riveted the e-brake trim plate into place, then set to doing the front wheel well closeouts for the driver side. Straight forward stuff without any surprises.

Today I set the console in place to test switch fitment before I have the shift box welded back in tomorrow. After I did that I put the radio in place just to test its clearance when it opens (to make sure it clears the AC controls). When I tried opening the unit I realized I did not have enough clearance cut out for the bottom edge to tilt out without catching the edge of the console cut-out. Pulled back the vinyl, again, and trimmed the top and bottom edges down a bit more, then put the radio in place and tested – good to go now. Just need to re-glue the vinyl and get the radio mounted to the tunnel frame. I also cut out the ignition switch hole in the console trim plate.

Silicone’d the bottom and sides of the front mesh to hold that in place. That should be good to go tomorrow.  With the mesh in place I installed the front camera. I attached the camera to the under-side of the hood mouth using a few left over black duct screws from the AC parts, then routed the cabling through the nose of the hood with some adhesive-backed wire holders. Once I get the car off its jack stands I will fine-tune the  positioning of the camera.

The head unit of choice (Pioneer AVH-4200DVD) arrived recently so I set to getting it wired up. Straight forward stuff – power, switched power, ground, and emergency brake ground meant to prevent watching video during driving. The vette e-brake breaks ground at the first ‘click’, which really doesn’t engage anything, so it’s not a big deal. I still have to wire up the speakers. Wires are already ran, just need to connect everything when speakers arrive.

With the radio wired up I ran the front camera cable. I drilled another hole in the tunnel rear wall next to the current wiring pass-through hole and then another at the firewall to allow the RCA cable through. This was routed up to the front of the car. The camera’s power/ground cable was routed from the front to the firewall, then wired up to a switched power and ground.  Tested everything – good to go. Rear view camera was tested as well, but wiring hasn’t been made permanent yet.

After doing the above I cut the console face out so that the head unit can be fit in from behind. This took quite a while as I cut the hole too small (on purpose) then slowly filed it out for a good tight fit once the vinyl was glued back into place.