Fiesta mk7.5 radio fitting nightmare

[rubynerd]

Hi all, first post here — apologies if this isn't in the right place, but I'm at my wits end with this one.

I've attempted to replace the stock Sony radio in my Fiesta 2014 Titanium with a Sony XAV-AX3005DB, and technically speaking everything* works, it's just the fitment kit I've got from Connects2 that doesn't make any sense. The car has a SYNC 1 screen (no sat nav), but the Connects2 CT23FD43 kit doesn't fit with screen in it's original place, and it didn't come with any manual/instructions at all.

The only manual I can find for the Connects2 Fiesta fitting kits mention a red screen instead of a SYNC screen — have I got the wrong part from Connects2, or have I missed something? I saw someone on here with what looked like a Connects2 CT24FD33 kit, but I don't want to buy yet another fitting kit without knowing if it'll work.

Here's a picture of the current situation:

As convenient as it is to have a huge hole in my dashboard, what part do I need to cover this up? 

Thank you for reading, I appreciate it! 

* Reversing camera doesn't work on either SYNC or head unit — I'm looking for a guide but if you have a link, please let me know!

[lilbleh]

2 hours ago, rubynerd said:

Hi all, first post here — apologies if this isn't in the right place, but I'm at my wits end with this one.

I've attempted to replace the stock Sony radio in my Fiesta 2014 Titanium with a Sony XAV-AX3005DB, and technically speaking everything* works, it's just the fitment kit I've got from Connects2 that doesn't make any sense. The car has a SYNC 1 screen (no sat nav), but the Connects2 CT23FD43 kit doesn't fit with screen in it's original place, and it didn't come with any manual/instructions at all.

The only manual I can find for the Connects2 Fiesta fitting kits mention a red screen instead of a SYNC screen — have I got the wrong part from Connects2, or have I missed something? I saw someone on here with what looked like a Connects2 CT24FD33 kit, but I don't want to buy yet another fitting kit without knowing if it'll work.

Here's a picture of the current situation:

As convenient as it is to have a huge hole in my dashboard, what part do I need to cover this up? 

Thank you for reading, I appreciate it! 

* Reversing camera doesn't work on either SYNC or head unit — I'm looking for a guide but if you have a link, please let me know!

I can only provide comments on the reverse camera.  You need to check the wiring.  If your reversing camera is the trunk switch type,  then the reverse camera should come with a + and - wire and then 1 cable with RCA jack (yellow) and has a red wire cable on both ends.  You need to tap the + and - to your original trunck switch wiring.  Then take one end  of the red wire near the yellow RCA jack and connect it to the reversing bulb wiring.  Next you need to take the other end of the RCA jack and connect the yellow jack to the VIDEO in of your head unit and see if the head unit wiring loom or harness comes with a + trigger for the reversing video to come on.  If it does,  then you need to connect it to that wire.  It is quite difficult to assess wiring without seeing any pics,  but that is normally how it should be done.  Good luck! 

[rubynerd]

6 hours ago, lilbleh said:

I can only provide comments on the reverse camera.  You need to check the wiring.  If your reversing camera is the trunk switch type,  then the reverse camera should come with a + and - wire and then 1 cable with RCA jack (yellow) and has a red wire cable on both ends.  You need to tap the + and - to your original trunck switch wiring.  Then take one end  of the red wire near the yellow RCA jack and connect it to the reversing bulb wiring.  Next you need to take the other end of the RCA jack and connect the yellow jack to the VIDEO in of your head unit and see if the head unit wiring loom or harness comes with a + trigger for the reversing video to come on.  If it does,  then you need to connect it to that wire.  It is quite difficult to assess wiring without seeing any pics,  but that is normally how it should be done.  Good luck! 

Hi mate thanks for the reply — I'm not sure what connectors the camera itself has, as I'm trying to re-use the OEM camera that would have displayed on the SYNC screen at the top. I've looked at the connector spec for the wiring into that screen and there are a couple of wires listed for reversing, but they're listed as LVDS, so I'm not sure if they're compatible with RCA.

There's a bunch of wiring harnesses for taking an aftermarket RCA/yellow-jack camera and inserting it into SYNC, but I can't find one that does the opposite & lets me use the factory/OEM Ford camera with a new head unit. To be fair the camera quality is not great, so I wouldn't mind replacing it with something that's better

[lilbleh]

If it is for factory fitted reverse camera then my suggestion will not work as i was unaware that you were trying to fit the original factory camera.  I assumed that since your head unit was aftermarket the reverse camera was aftermarket as well.  It is kind of weird but if you already have the factory camera,  it is going to be very difficult to change it to aftermarket unit since the camera is assembled together with the plastic moulding cover on the trunk.  Fitting aftermarket will give you an additional camera which means that you will have 2 cameras which is why i said it will be weird.  In any case,  just for your information,  there are 3 basic types of aftermarket reverse camera.  Type 1 will be integrated with the trunk switch (which in my opinion gives a more integrated and clean look) and type 2 is very common as in just a camera that needs to be screwed on (prone to rusting at the screws and the mounting brackets and you need to put holes in your car to mount it which to me is the least desirable type) then there is type 3 where the camera is mounted onto one of the license plate light assembly (this means that you might have different colour lights shining at your license plate lights).  Anyway,  sorry that i cannot be of much help.  

 

[rubynerd]

10 hours ago, lilbleh said:

If it is for factory fitted reverse camera then my suggestion will not work as i was unaware that you were trying to fit the original factory camera.  I assumed that since your head unit was aftermarket the reverse camera was aftermarket as well.  It is kind of weird but if you already have the factory camera,  it is going to be very difficult to change it to aftermarket unit since the camera is assembled together with the plastic moulding cover on the trunk.  Fitting aftermarket will give you an additional camera which means that you will have 2 cameras which is why i said it will be weird.  In any case,  just for your information,  there are 3 basic types of aftermarket reverse camera.  Type 1 will be integrated with the trunk switch (which in my opinion gives a more integrated and clean look) and type 2 is very common as in just a camera that needs to be screwed on (prone to rusting at the screws and the mounting brackets and you need to put holes in your car to mount it which to me is the least desirable type) then there is type 3 where the camera is mounted onto one of the license plate light assembly (this means that you might have different colour lights shining at your license plate lights).  Anyway,  sorry that i cannot be of much help.  

 

Yeah it's a bit of a weird situation — thank you for the write-up, it'll be incredibly useful if I replace the factory with an aftermarket 😃

[cjay1]

I used the factory fitted camera. there are 3 wires for the camera +,-and shield wires going in to the connector that plugs into the little screen. (wires 6 11 and 12 off the top of my head but check wiring diagram first) . I just wired the + and - video wires in to an RCA plug and plugged that in to the new head unit. The shield wire can remain in the original connector. This will generate a camera not available message. this message can be switched off with forscan. Just tell the bcm no camera is fitted and job done. The camera will still work.

[rubynerd]

9 hours ago, cjay1 said:

I used the factory fitted camera. there are 3 wires for the camera +,-and shield wires going in to the connector that plugs into the little screen. (wires 6 11 and 12 off the top of my head but check wiring diagram first) . I just wired the + and - video wires in to an RCA plug and plugged that in to the new head unit. The shield wire can remain in the original connector. This will generate a camera not available message. this message can be switched off with forscan. Just tell the bcm no camera is fitted and job done. The camera will still work.

Awesome, I'll give that a bash when I get a spare RCA connector!

Does anyone have any thoughts on the fitment issue? 

[lilbleh]

1 hour ago, rubynerd said:

Awesome, I'll give that a bash when I get a spare RCA connector!

Does anyone have any thoughts on the fitment issue? 

Actually there are aftermarket android units that you should have considered because if you buy the correct ones,  the units are plug and play and include the cover as well.  So all you needed to do was fit and fasten the wiring harnesses and connectors and you're good to go. 

[rubynerd]

12 hours ago, lilbleh said:

Actually there are aftermarket android units that you should have considered because if you buy the correct ones,  the units are plug and play and include the cover as well.  So all you needed to do was fit and fasten the wiring harnesses and connectors and you're good to go. 

In hindsight that would have been a much better call than trying to fit a Sony double-DIN, but because I've already spent ~£500 buying everything for this (radio, 2x fitting kits, loom, radio adapter) I'd like to try a last-ditch effort to get this work before chucking the whole lot on eBay

[rubynerd]

An update on this: I picked up a Connects2 CT24FD33 (instead of the disastrous CT23FD43) & it fits beautifully. Haven't screwed everything down yet, but if you're looking for the fitting kit for a SYNC 1.1 display in a Fiesta mk7, the 33 is the one you need. It's astonishingly fiddly to screw everything in, and naturally there aren't any instructions, but it's relatively self-explanatory from the stuff that's in the box. There's a photo of what the whole ensemble looks like below. I have no idea why Connects2 couldn't recommend this kit given my VIN number, but according to 7zap's Ford KB, the FCDIM in my Fiesta (part number 1883244, EM5T-18B955-GD) was manufactured in a six-month period in 2014 (from 20.05.2014, to 18.12.2014). I guess they just did everything for the mk7, and assumed it would work for the mk7.5.

Onto the reversing camera: I cracked open the Connects2 interface box to assess what's going on in there, and the camera pins 6 & 12 weren't connected to anything. According to the wiring diagram I have, these pins are the "LVDS" pins for the camera:

I soldered on two wires and crimped bullet connectors onto them, then drilled a hole into the plastic so the wires could poke out.

Unfortunately, this didn't work, and the head unit simply displays garbage instead:

Because I put bullet connectors on the box I can add the camera pins into the FCDIM connector coming off of the Connects2 harness & the rear camera can display itself the top screen instead of the bottom screen. This will work until I want to add front parking sensors, which I don't think are compatible with the reversing camera.

I'm really tired of dealing with car wiring stuff at the moment, but I might come back to this at some point. LVDS is probably incompatible with Composite analogue video, so I didn't have high hopes for this working anyway. I'm putting this on the shelf for now, but if I can find a spare camera from a breakers & work out what protocol it speaks, I'll come back to this.

Thanks all for your help, I'm happy I've just got this fitted into the dashboard!

[Lewie226]

Crikey well done - I gave up with the ‘simple ‘ task of adding sound to the nav I fitted

[unofix]

A very interesting project. keep up the fight with the camera, you're right LVDS and composire video are not compatible, looks like you will need a different camera.

[rubynerd]

I will figure out this camera eventually as I really can't be bothered to run a cable from the boot, and I'm upset I've spent so much time on this so far. Ideally 7zap could give me the spare part number for the reversing camera, so I can get a spare from eBay and I wouldn't have to take my car apart to find out what protocol it speaks. I'm also on-call this week so I can't spend a bunch of time downstairs on our parking garage without any phone service.

That said, the original camera is exceedingly questionable in quality. I drove a 21-plate A-class about a month ago, and the reversing camera was astoundingly good ("could see the bugs on the car behind's number plate" good), so if I do need to put a new camera in than I think I can do better than the potato Ford put in as stock.

I'll open a new thread with any updates, but if anyone reading this has any info on the reversing camera that you think would help please either reply or DM me directly, as I would love to hear about any discoveries I'm yet to make!

 

[cjay1]

I literally shoved the camera wires in to the correct plug and plugged that in to the radio and it works the plug cost around £1 

[lilbleh]

One thing to note is that on the multimedia unit you might need to do some setting for the camera.  For example if the reverse camera bought is PAL system then it will display the garbage unless you set it to PAL.  So basically you need to find out if your camera is NTSC or PAL or some other system and make sure that the setting is correct. Hope this helps.