The PT Cruiser Blog: The 30th mod, Custom iPhone Car Kit

It's been a while since I've done anything on the PT Cruiser so a new modification was long overdue.

Having recently got an iPhone 4, the ability for it to run TomTom sat nav and its built in iPod functionality meant I no longer needed to carry a mobile phone, a sat nav and an iPod around with me, provided I could get the iPhone connected to the car.

Not being a fan of having wires everywhere, I wanted a solution that would allow me to get in the car, drop the iPhone in a holder and that be it. No suction cups on the windscreen, no wires across the dashboard, nothing to plug in or set up. I just wanted to put the phone in a holder and be done. I also wanted it to charge the phone while docked in the car and I also didn't want to drill any holes in the dashboard as this would have an impact on the value of the car when selling it at a later date. I didn't want much, did I?

TomTom make a very nice mount for the iPhone:

However, as you can see from this photo, the official TomTom mount blocks the docking port on the bottom of the iPhone meaning you can't connect the iPhone to the car stereo (or to anything else) which for my needs, makes this mount a bit useless.

After probably hours of searching eBay (in China & Hong Kong - they have all sorts of stuff like this) and Google, I thought the only way to have exactly what I want was to build exactly what I want.

I found a firm in Sweden called Brodit who make some really nice holders for the iPhone. It was here that I found the ideal holder for this project. For those of you who want the same, it's called a 'Holder with Pass-Through Connector, Padded, Apple iPhone 4' and the Brodit part number is '516164'.

This holder allows you to drop the iPhone in to the top of it and not only does it turn a full 360 degrees, but it can also be angled up / down / left / right too. Best of all however (and most important of all in this case), is the 'pass-through connector' on the bottom. This connector allows you to plug anything you like in to the holder itself, be it a charger or FM Transmitter or anything else you'd normally plug in to the iPhone itself as the connector 'passes through' the holder and in to the iPhone itself.

Here are a few photos of the holder (click on any photo to enlarge it):

So with the holder sorted, I needed a way to attach it to the dashboard of the car but again, it needed to be removable (if I ever sell the car) and leave no trace or damage.

Luckily, Brodit also make some brilliant brackets called ProClip. The ProClip brackets are available for just about every make and model of car ever made, I even found a ProClip for my fifteen year old Ford Scorpio!

The ProClip brackets require no drilling or screwing, they just clip in to the existing parts of your car dashboard and are shaped perfectly.

There are two different types available for the PT Cruiser. One mounts high up on the dash, in between the two air vents, the other mounts lower down and to the left of the radio. Unfortunately, neither of these are ideal. The higher one covers and obstructs the window switches completely (no idea why they even make this one) and the other is very likely to get knocked by your passengers legs.

Aware of this, I ordered them both anyway with the intention of rigging something up myself, using the various bits of plastic supplied. Here are a few photos of the brackets and their (badly) suggested fitting locations:

With the holder and the brackets sorted, all I needed now was a new FM Transmitter kit.

I'd previously already installed a Stealth iPod FM Transmitter but wanted something a bit more up to date.
Some more searching of the Internet came up with a Griffin iTrip AutoPilot. This great bit of kit killed a couple of birds with one stone as it charges the iPhone and is also an FM Transmitter:

The Griffin iTrip AutoPilot also has a couple of added features, one being that you can control it with an App from the AppStore but the best one, it supports RDS. This means that while the iPod software on the iPhone is playing music, the name of the artist and the song title are displayed on your car stereo. Perfect.

So that was it, with all the parts sourced (holder, brackets, fm kit) it was time to take the car apart and get it all fitted!

First of all, I removed the old Stealth iPod FM Transmitter and the 'Semi-Stealth TomTom' Satellite Navigation mods as they were being made redundant by this new iPhone set up.

With the Brodit ProClips being a bit useless in their suggested mounted locations (useless for me anyway, they might be fine for you), I decided to sacrifice a heater vent and locate the phone holder there. Easy to reach, won't get knocked, good line of sight to the sky for GPS use with TomTom and not blocking any controls on the dash.

With the centre console dashboard off, this round knob was in the way of my plans:

I needed to remove the air direction control knob. The air vent system on the PT Cruiser has to be one of the most over-engineered pieces of plastic I've ever seen in my life:

No wonder Chrysler went bust...

So, air control knob removed, time to get the Brodit phone holder attached. Not being able to use the supplied bracket that blocks all the window switches, I thought I'd make my own. I drew around the shape of the front of the holder and the screw holes:

I then cut and drilled the old bracket to make a piece of plastic to match the back of the holder:

This new piece of plastic allowed me to bolt the front plate through the air vent itself and connect to the back:

A quick test fit to make sure it all goes back in place:

Don't worry about the angle, this part isn't visible once complete. I attached the holder to the newly-made bracket:

You can see how it angles and turns here:

Another quick test fit (you can never test fit too many times!):

To get power in to the Griffin iTrip AutoPilot I bought a two-in-two one cigarette lighter adaptor from eBay for £2:

I cut one of the sockets off it and wired it to an ignition-live:

This means when the engine is on, the Griffin iTrip AutoPilot is on too. I don't have to muck about switching things on or plugging things in. The Griffin iTrip AutoPilot then plugs in to the the new (and hidden) socket:

A little tip here, wrap or strap the wires of your FM Transmitter to the antenna cable of your car stereo, you'll get a much better (and therefore clearer) signal:

I stuck the buttons for the Griffin iTrip AutoPilot on the dashboard (where I could reach them) using a double sided sticky pad. These buttons provide Play/Pause and Next/Previous Track features. There is also a little digital display on the buttons which tell you the name of the track. In case you can't tell what you're listening too. Or in case you can't see the iPhone. Or in case you can't see the RDS display on your stereo. Yes, this little display does seem a bit pointless really...

So that's about it, I put everything back together and made sure it all worked:

This might all seem a bit long winded and possibly a little over the top, but this kit now gives me the ability to charge the iPhone in the car with no wires / connectors / plugs / switches / etc. I can also play the iPhone / iPod music through the car stereo plus I can also turn the cradle 90 degrees when using Sat Nav to have it in a 'wide screen' format. The spoken directions of TomTom also come out of the car speakers too. When the phone rings, the music is muted and the ring tone is also played through the car speakers.

You can also use the iPhone in the car as a Freeview TV Tuner (again, with the sound coming out of your stereo). Tempting as it might be, I wouldn't recommend you watch TV whilst driving (you might miss a bit of Eastenders):