I just bought a 97 lx with an Alpine head unit, so the tape deck does not work, and I dont own any cassettes anyway. Has anybody thought of anything creative/useful to put in its place? Also is it pretty easy to remove? I havent really looked at it yet.

 

here's something useful lol! its what i replaced it with at least....



Itinerant actually left his stock radio in and put the aftermarket one down there

 

that would work good, and I could route an ipod cable down there too. Where did you get it?

 

This is what Superfly is talking about:


I have a 2000 Civic so its a bit different. But I left the stock radio up top and put the aftermarket one in the bottom. Its not hard to do and it deters theft. (If someone glances in and sees a stock radio in the center console, they may just walk away.) The wire harness should stretch if it wasn't modified too much when the head unit was installed.

Otherwise, all you have to do is take out 6 screws: 2 at the very back of the arm rest near the bottom (1 on each side), 2 in the middle of the arm rest piece (1 on each side), and 2 on that lower center console piece (1 on each side). Actually, there may be 4, not 2 on the lower center console, but thats no big deal. Once the screws are out, you pull the arm rest part off and set it aside, pull the ebrake up, put the car in neutral or drive so you can angle that lower console part up, then pull it out over the shift ****. The cup holder and your tape deck will stay in place because it's separate. It's held on by 4 obvious screws, 2 on each side.

What Superfly did was replaced that cup holder with the 99-00 style cup holder, which has a larger pocket and two sizes of cup holders. There is a pocket that you can put in place of the tape deck on your style cup holder, but it's smaller. I have pictures of both styles in my for sale thread if you wanted to look and compare.

[edit] Actually, I'll stop being lazy. Here:

99-00 Style:


96-98 Style:

 

Are the 99-00 cupholder/pocket combos essentially "plug and play" in a '98? Any trimming, etc... involved?

 

Thanks very much Ill see if I can find one of those.

 

I can say yes for sure, they just drop in, no modification required when switching from 99-00 to 96-98. I can say with relative certainty that it's the same when doing the opposite.

 

Good to know, thanks. Can never have enough storage.

 

Hey jchc you could probably fin done at a u pull it or junkyard....or on ebay

http://search.ebay.com/search/search...fsop=32&fsoo=2

all you have to do is unscrew your center console, then the tape deck, and reverse the process.

 

I did a cheap mod for a coin holder. ill post pictures up tomorrow afternoon/night. i love it, no money spent besides a little bit of ducktape. creats a nice hideing spot/storage container.