G-Unicorn the Y61

[BrazilianY60]

The GU came with with a Tape Deck stereo type (hahaha stereotype) of Head Unit. Kids had never seen a cassette tape before, so I thought it was fun to keep it. I have even gotten one FM transmitter BlueTooth adapter for it.
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Rear speakers never worked, to which I assumed there were only front speakers, being this a military agency car. One day, out of nothing, driver side speaker stopped working. Next day, no speaker worked. One day later, four speakers working, so it had four after all. Being this an intermittent issue, I thought it was some sort of bad contact. Took the central part of the dash apart, examined the stereo harness, nothing wrong with it. Chances turned to the stereo output having cracked welds of some sort. Took it a part and could not see anything visually burnt or cracked. On the bench, all four channels worked all the time. Took it to an electronic repair shop and asked the guy to resolder everything on the output side of things.
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And the darn thing didn't work once re-installed! Well, let's check the speakers then... Replaced one of the front doors with a brand new (but very underpowered) Pioneer speaker that I was using for bench testing and it worked. I had a pair of those, so I have replaced the other side as well. Since the harness had two connectors, one being exclusively for the rear speakers, I left that one disconnected and used the stereo only with the front speakers for a while. When installing the Pioneers on the front doors, I have replaced the Nissan speaker connector with regular spade (female side) connectors. Why Nissan bothered having a connector for the speakers is beyond me.
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I started looking for another solution with better audio quality. I didn't want to go Android Media Center path again, as I had a bad experience with that on my 105. The thing is, a SW based solution that someone other than me decides when to update and make it turn into crap (planned obsolescence - had to search that one) is shite mate... A couple of automatic updates over 6 months and the thing is slow as it can be. And being the cellphone something you kind of replace every two years or so, the slowness becomes painfully evident when you have something way faster at hand to compare. My decision was then to leave NAV, etc to be cellphone tasks and pick a stereo to be a good dedicated audio HW.

Another thing that bugger me a lot is the lack of an actual volume knob. You never had to look at a stereo while driving, since from AM radio days! Not even to tune, you would drive and turn the tuning knob left and right gently to fine tune the desired station, all without looking! Know, at the touch screen society, even with good finger aim qualities you can't change the volume say in a corrugated road, without looking at the unit. Fark it!

I also wanted it to be 2din so the square cut on the dash central piece wouldn't look awkward. Doing searches on google, I got to a page inside the Pioneer Brazil website for a model that checked all the boxes. No CD/DVD, no tape, nothing. Just a media receiver for BT and USB. Good power output, 6 pre-amp output channels if I decide to go amplified, 13 band equalizer. Looked promising. Oh, and a huge volume knob, hahaha. It also had the possibility to change the color of the display and keys to match the amber illumination of the Patrol switches, HVAC and stuff. Great! When I started to research the cost of it I realized it was a manufacture discontinued piece. The Pioneer current unit on my market with the desired features is now 1din. Ok, let's not give up, let's go for a used one. After a few months on the hunt I was able to get a good used one, no scratches, for a reasonable price.
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Bought from my favorite Choina site one Nissan to ISO adapter harness, pretty much like the Aerpro model I see here on all stereo topics. Bought locally one ISO half built harness and matched/soldered that to the Pioneer half harness that came with the unit. Some cloth tape for that OEM finish and also self adhesive foam tape around the connectors to keep them from making noise behind the dash if they bang around on corrugated roads. I am happy with how this came out.
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I don't want to spend any more money on the GU other then maintenance before I have the GQ finished, so I decided to give a pair of old (but more powerful) Pioneer speakers a try for the rear doors. I saved them from the beaten up GQ when disassembling it's interior. I bit bent, full of dust, one with a broken wire from terminals to coil. Cleaned them a bit, resoldered the broken wire.
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Hands-free mic on the (my) drivers side A-pillar and unit in place. The sound difference, even with not up to par speakers was astonishing. They say that SPECIALLY in audio you get what you paid for, and this can't be far from true. Absolutely no comparison with the listening pleasure of this unit on regular speakers and the Android unit on my 105 with GOOD speakers.
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[BrazilianY60]

After few days using it, I decided that it was too far out of the dash for my liking. I'd prefer it to be more flush. Took it off, redrilled the brackets to make it sit further into the dash. I have also noticed there was a half centimeter gap around the whole unit from where you could see the back of the dash. Asked around at stereo shops and was able to buy this frame thing. I have cut it about two centimeters around the finishing surrounding and put it all together again.
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The GU is now the most pleasure drive on the house, according to the Automotive Engineering Society supervisors (my kids).

[BrazilianY60]

After not having luck with a guy who took my money but never sent me the part, I stopped fooling around and ordered a new one from Japan.





I'm glad with the result, but now that I have it in place, I reckon that it needs to be color coded. Someday, maybe.

[BrazilianY60]

Got this funny Godzilla tire cover and had to make fun of my LandCruiser friends. Picture is bad but it is "eating LandCruiser" with chopsticks.

[BrazilianY60]

Decided take the GQ wheels for a spin, and the GU looks sick in them. It screams for flares, though.

[BrazilianY60]

Some good buddies insisted on me going on a fishing trip with them despite me not being a fishing person myself. Mates weekend, no wifes, no kids. The ute load of draft beer kegs they were bringing was a too good of an argument to pass...

The GU is not my main choice for a road trip at the moment since I have not dedicated time nor money to its maintenance as the GQ is the priority money pit. It needs a full suspension job (all bushes+all shocks), new brake pads all around and definitely a rear main seal. But the place where we were going is so beautiful and full of scarps and I was so keen to try the GU in 4 low that I decided taking it anyway.

To make justice to the title, here is the only actual fishing picture that I can offer:
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I checked with locals of places where people liked the view and they sent me toward two places. First one, is the top of one of the highest hills they have, where people jump from a cliff on hand gliders and paragliders.
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The view of the scarfs from there:
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People jump from this cliff with their gliders:
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Second place was called the "the solitaire tree". It is a single tree on the top of a mountain on private property where you are allowed to go in assuming you are used to the most basic of protocols (not being loud, being polite to people, not leaving anything after you, closing gates, etc).

The solitaire tree seen from afar:
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You can certainly drive there over some regular dirt roads but the funniest way was a cattle trail over the edge of the mountains.
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Arriving at the place and the view from there:
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From there I took another trail down to the lake for some nice local food and to cool my feet on the lake's water.
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And to close this adventure, some poser pictures with a shot suspension
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