Rear Seat DVD Installation (/w Pics)

As promised (though frankly about a month after the fact!), I'm doing a quick write up on the headrest LCD/DVD/SD/USB installation I had mentioned in one of many the prior rear-DVD threads.

Background/Requirements :

- Wife wanted rear seat LCD for our daughter - I did a bang up job on our last LandRover Freelander (if I do say so myself), so she gave me the green light to do whatever I wanted. I like playing with stuff - this works out as a good deal.

- I'm naturally "frugal", but wanted to maintain as much OEM look as possible. Unfortunately the stock LR3 headrests are pretty narrow, and custom mounting an LCD looked to be a bit beyond my skill level. I also wanted to keep the factory HU, which ruled out quite a few possibilities. In our prior LR, I replaced the stock HU, so control over the rear seats was pretty easy (including integration back to the steering wheel, etc, etc). I've really only gone so far as actually providing the rear seat entertainment - front seat control is yet to come (see notes at the end).

- I wound up grabbing a set of Innovatek HR-DVD709s (not to be confused with the 907s), which sport a widescreen 7" TFT, integrated TV,DVD,SD & USB player, a nice "zip up" cover and a slew of other features. I grabbed them from a store in Canada called "Mp3PlayerStore.com", which is based on Montreal, Québec. After unsuccesfully attempting to order the 907s (9 inch model, not in stock - took my money, no callback, etc, etc), I decided to give 'em another chance and ordered the 709 model. I lucked into a 15% Christmas discount, free shipping and an el-cheapo MP3/MP4 player. Regular price on each headrest is $159 USD, and the price to my door wound up being just over $300 after taxes.

Here's a quick pic of what comes in the package:


What may not be so obvious, is that the LCD flips open to reveal the DVD player.

- The install was relatively straightforward, but I was watching a bit of college football (Jan 1st), so it took place over the course of 6 hours - probably about 1.5 hours or so of actual work time.

- I'm actually not quite done, as I need to do some wiring for control up front, but here's the process so far:

Part #1 - Headrest Removal

This is actually a pretty easy task - the toughest part is getting the little plastic clips off the base of the protuding arms. These clips hide an bolt (allan, IIRC), which is then unscrewed and the arms slide out easily.

Here's the clip, removed and sitting next to it's proper location:



Once you pull off the clip, you need to remove the bolt - you can actually see the pattern - it's not the allan key pattern - the name slips my mind, but it's a 6 sided star (I have a set that of these - looks like an allen key ring).

Here's how the arm slides out of the seat back and the headrest - simply pull away from the headrest:




Once both sides are out, you can lift the headrest straight up and out - note that there are the same clips found on your 2nd row seats that need to be depressed before the headrest will move. These are a little hard to get at as they sit underneath the leather of the seat, but you can push them without removing the leather. If this proves difficult, you can apparently remove the leather around these clips - I read this over at Disco3.

Here's the headrest lifted halfway up:

Part #2 - Comparison to stock headrests

I took a few pics of the replacement headrests with the stock LR3 front headrests. The color isn't a perfect match by any stretch, but so far no one has noticed that they aren't stock when they get in the vehicle.

Providing a good comparison of the color in good southern exposure sun, here's the front view:




Here's a second front view, that provides an idea of the difference in width:



And finally here's a side view showing the sharp angle of the LR3 headrest:



I do wish I had looked at this picture a bit more before installing the headrest - I might have attempted to bend the arms of the headrest a bit. You'll note that unlike most headrests, the bars of the LR3 headrest protrude from the rear of the headrest base - most that I've dealt with a closer to the center (dead center in domestics, slightly rearward in BMWs, and heavily rearward in the LR3 and a few Volvos I've played with).

Part #3 - Reinstallation of headrest

Ok, so I mentioned that I was looking for an oem style finish - which means reinstalling the bars. This actually proved to be less of a challenge then I thought. I grabbed a trusty tape measure, used the wall as a fixed point, and drew some approximate cut out areas with a pen on the side of the headrest. A quick slice with an exacto knife, a few pulls with a pair of needle-nose pliers and I had the area for the headrest handle. Here's a pic:



Here's a picture of testing fitting the arm back in:



Unfortunately I got a bit lazy with the camera at this point, and didn't snap too many more pics before I was finished, however he's what has to happen to re-install:

Working from the back seat:
- Remove the lower portion of the seat back, so that you can work with the wires (I just declipped the bottom - pull down and out).
- Fish a peice of clothes-hanger down the right side headrest hole of the seat back with a peice of speaker wire attached to it
- Once you've fed it through and grabbed it at the bottom of the seat (where you removed the lower portion), you can attach the wiring from the headrest (see the first pic), to the speaker wire, and pull it through when you mount the headrest.
- Unfortunately the wire attached to the new headrest isn't quite long enough, so you may have to connect it up with the power/speaker/video supply blindly (not to tough).
- I tapped the power from the rear-aux cig adapter in the center console. Instead of removing the entire console, you can simply pop out the cover - it's only lightly clipped into place.
- I pulled a similar trick with fishing wire to get it into place from the rear-cig adapter on down.

I think I have a pic of that part out somewhere, and I'll try to attach it later.


Things I have still yet to do:

1) Cross wire the LCDs so that you can "share" whatever is playing between screens (each screen has aux in/aux out wires).
2) Tap the ipod/mp3/whatever player next to the rear-aux cig adapter so that I can broadcast whatever is on the screen through the aux-in in the HU.
3) Wire the aux-out from the screens to a Nav screen (aftermarket - probably Pioneer) in the dash, so the passenger (wife!) can easily start up a DVD and navigate through the menus.

Part 4 - A couple of pics of the headrests installed:

Here's a picture over the "shoulder" of my daughters car seat:


(I should probably have turned it on so that you can see the lcd quality - it's not too bad, though only 432 lines!)

Here's a shot from the driver's side rear passenger door:




If anyone wants any specific pictures, just post back to the thread and I'll snap a few more.

I am going to be away for most of the week, so I'll be able to answer questions, but I won't be able to take pictures again until next weekend.

Cheers,

GTC

Nice job, and thanks for posting the work-through. I'll be looking to add some "kid friendly" items here in the near future as my toy will have to evolve into something more family-like.

Very nicely done. Thanks for the follow up.

How is this arm attached inside the head rest? Is it just stuck in there?

That said, how did you secure it to the inside of the new head rest? I saw the hole you made but do you just jam it in there or is it actually secured.

Maybe I missed that in your write-up. I was following the pictures so good and then when they stopped my ADD kicked in and I blanked.

How is the pictures quality in daylight?



THIRD question...unrelated. What are those gaurds on the back of your seat? Are they kick gaurds for kids feet or something? I may need some of those.

Great post. Thanks!

toddjb122 said:

How is this arm attached inside the head rest? Is it just stuck in there?

That said, how did you secure it to the inside of the new head rest? I saw the hole you made but do you just jam it in there or is it actually secured.

Maybe I missed that in your write-up. I was following the pictures so good and then when they stopped my ADD kicked in and I blanked.

Click to expand...

Good question - I'll probably amend the write-up, because many are curious (it's come up on other sites). In the factory headrest theres a metal channel that holds the top part of the bar - it's not fastened with anything, just resting in the channel.

On the replacement headrests, it just rests inside the headrest. I'm able to reach in and grab the handle and rock the truck back and forther without it budging. The bolt in the base (on the shoulder of the seat) is enough to hold it quite securely.

toddjb122 said:

How is the pictures quality in daylight?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure quite what to compare it too - it's washed out if you have direct sunlight on it, but overall is fairly viewable. To be honest, I've never sat and watched them - my daughter doesn't have the vocabulary to give me any good feedback.... When I get a chance, I'll watch a bit and let you know my impressions. Obviously, at night, it's great.

toddjb122 said:

THIRD question...unrelated. What are those gaurds on the back of your seat? Are they kick gaurds for kids feet or something? I may need some of those.

Great post. Thanks!

Click to expand...

The guards - they are kick guards for the kids (we often carry the neighbours kids as well as our own). In the great snowy north of Southern Ontario, their boots get wet and muddy all the time - these things have been life savers (otherwise I'd be cleaning all the time). I think my wife picked 'em up at Toys'R'Us or Walmart - she said they were $6 for the pair....


Thanks all for the comments and compliments,

GTC

Now that was the most inspiring post I ever seen. WOW!!!
My rover will now sport headrest dvd system. Thanks for this post.