Leave Me in the Dark

Part 1: A New Hope

My RAV4 is a bottom of the barrel pre-facelift base model, as I have discussed before. I kinda perfer it this way, because it gives me a sort of blank canvas to work from. Being a 90s car, it of course came with a CD player. Now what’s interesting is that the CD player was not integrated into the radio control box, but it was actually a separate piggyback drive with a cable to connect them. This is a perfectly fine way of doing things, and while I do have a decent sized collection of CDs, c’mon, it’s 2022, nobody uses CDs anymore. Plus mine didn’t work anyway (or the car just REALLY didn’t want to play Pretty Hate Machine by NIN). At some point in a junkyard excursion I found a factory single DIN storage bin, so I ended up replacing the CD tray with that.

I tried to cannibalize the CD drive to somehow splice in a standard 3.5mm audio jack into the stock radio, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do it externally. I picked up a 3.5mm to FM adapter and made that work for a while, but I always wanted an Android Auto headunit. However, that obviously wouldn’t work in a single DIN slot. I do some digging, and there’s a decent selection of single DIN options with a flip up screen but none of them flip down. So if I put that in the upper slot it would cover my climate controls, as well as my 4wd/hazard/defrost switches, which are pretty important. If I put it in the lower slot it would hit the plastic bezel above. So I’m SOL for now. But while I had the lower trim off I noticed something. There’s nothing back there. I mean there’s stuff, but behind the blank switches and the 12v outlet, there’s room. I think that’s a hidden double DIN slot. You read on the RAV4 forums, check fitment on car stereo sites, and everything points to double DIN units not fitting the RAV4. But I think that will work. At some point in my searching I stumble on something golden.

That’s right, RAV4s in Japan actually came with double DIN units installed! It seems that they were either used for larger storage bins or for some sort of more advanced radio/car phone control. I manage to dig up a part number (55413-42010 for those curious) but to no surprise they’re long discontinued. That would actually work for me, that piece is the same LHD and RHD, it’s not angled towards one side or the other. Oh well, I don’t mind cutting, but this all but confirms that a double DIN unit will work perfectly. There’s not an infinite amount of room so I look for one that has a stubby chassis. I end up deciding on the Apline ILX-W650. Supports Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, as well as standard bluetooth/radio/XM connections. Simple wiring job, test to make sure it operates as expected, and I decide to just trim the single DIN+switch plate bezel to fit. I lose some blank switches and a cigarette lighter, big deal. While I was at it, I just moved the single DIN storage bin to the top slot, replacing my radio.

As you can clearly see my dremel skills are impeccable. Yeah the bezel doesn’t look great, but fat chance I find a discontinued JDM only part, so it will have to do. I have considered running a small piece of weather stripping around the plastic, but I don’t know if I care enough.

UPDATE 2022/08/10: A good friend shipped me one from Australia. Apparently they are quite common there, apparently Toyota optioned them with larger storage bins. So, I now have a factory, uncut, clean OEM plastic piece. Luckily, and sorta unsurprisingly, zero trimming on that piece to fit the radio perfectly. The PN on it is 55413-42010 if you so desire to seek one out. RAV4 was only offered in one interior color so theres no dealing with finding the right piece.

Part 2: The Foglights Strike Back

Despite being marketed as an off-road vehicle, the first gen RAV4 was never sold with foglights. (Except for the RAV4 Giant which as far as I can tell was a Europe or even a UK-only trim level). This was also a facelift model so the front bumper and indicators are shaped differently. That in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem, I’d just have to get the housings for it. But there has to be a better way.

They look cool, and I’d love to get the kit, but man wouldn’t that be hard to source?

I’d always known I’d want to install foglights, or maybe some light bars. Could go with some KC daylighters or something basic like that, make some quick mounts, call it a day. In the back of my mind, I started to formulate something. Something that could look a lot better, much more OEM, and something a lot closer to home for me. Looking at the shape of the bumper, an image starts to appear…

So the shape is similar. I always wondered if it would be possible to cut the bumper out on my RAV and install MR2 foglights in place. Living in Phoenix, a rock shattered one of my MR2’s foglights, they needed to be replaced anyway, so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to check. It takes some trimming off the back of the housings themselves to prevent hitting the AC condenser, obviously trimming the bumper, and moving the transmission cooler lines, but some quick brackets, and man I’d go as far as to say they look good.

So now that the brackets were made, and they clear everything, I decided to order a new set so they’re not cracked. They’re everywhere on eBay for about 80 bucks a set. I thought yellow would look good, plus that works better in dirt or fog than plain white would. Once those come in, its easy enough to install them, wire it up, and have a working set. Unfortunatley I have to take the bumper off to remove the foglights, and no I don’t have a solution for that right now. I don’t think it’s a big deal. One thing thats cool about these eBay MR2 foglights is that they all seem to come with these wiring harnesses, despite ALL MR2s actually being wired for them. So I ended up having several leftover harnesses that I could use to install them in the RAV4. It was pretty easy, just needed a constant and switched 12V supply. There was a 12V terminal in the fusebox, easy enough. Finding a switched 12V was harder but it was easy to splice into. Route the included switch to the cabin, and there we go! They’re a little close together but it’s better than nothing, and it looks OEM enough.

Part 3: Return of the Switches

So I obviously removed those blank switch locations during the radio install. I thought I’d never have a use for them, but I might have a use in the near future. There are two spots for switches on the car, those four, and three to the left of the steering wheel. Since I have the foglights, I’m adding a T100 style clutch switch cancel, I’d like to add an E-locker, maybe some extra light bars, this, that, the other, yeah I’m going to run out of room. Well, where else can I put switches? There aren’t many flat surfaces on the dash to put them, and I’m not a fan of roof mounted switches either. Doing some thinking, I could just design a piece that goes into a single DIN slot that has Toyota 90s standard switch cutouts. So, I pull that upper bezel off again and realize there’s a rectangular register on the back, it would be trivial to design a panel that could simply glue into the back and stay attached, That part of the dash is decently stiff so I’m not worried about the forces from pressing switches. Well, pull the piece out, jump into SolidWorks, let’s knock this out.

Made some extra switch blockoff plates, and they are solid all the way through in case I need to drill a hole to install a non-Toyota standard button or switch. This took surprisingly long to 3D print, around 7 hours. I guess there’s a lot of X/Y movement and a good amount of Z height, but it was still surprising to me because of how little material there actually is. Oh well. A few hours later (a few DAYS since I wasn’t on campus during that time) and I have myself a ready-to-go switch panel.

It’s a TINY bit tight. The switches are pretty hard to push in. But they fit! If I were to do it again I’d open up the tolerances in the CAD model a little more. Not the end of the world, just needed a little hand touch up (and a little paint). I have since ordered my own printer and might give it another go with black filament. Luckily these panels are pretty plentiful so if I bond this one and don’t like it it wouldn’t be hard to find another. If I did it over again from scratch I’d instead pick up on the factory DIN mounting hardware, rather than being mounted to the plastic bezel itself. Gave it a shot of paint, I used Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover Satin Canyon Black, and I chose this paint specifically because I found it on a shelf in my garage.

Glued it to the bezel using some clear epoxy, choice here wasn’t critical, just needed to hold two plastic pieces together. Found this header that sat at the right angle to keep pressure on while it dried. I wonder how that could be useful to me in the future…. Anyway, stick it in the car, I’m pretty happy with it! I however might redo it and open up the tolerances some. Not a big deal. I’ll use black filament next time too, paint can get a little sticky.

So, that’s that. The RAV4 got some much needed creature comforts and modernizations, all while getting upgraded in the process. I see no downsides here. So, it’s perfect, right? Doesn’t need anything else. Well, maybe crusie control. That would be nice. I have leftover MR2 cruise control parts that I didn’t use in the swap, could adapt them to work in the RAV4 pretty easily, the linkages are all similar enough. Or…

My favorite way to get packages, on a pallet!

That’s right, this RAV4 is getting an engine from a… RAV4. Well this one wasn’t from a RAV4, but it could have been! Anyway, join me in the near future to see this 2AR-FE shoehorned into an SXA10 RAV4. World’s first!