Upgrading rv stereo to a car stereo

real4u2c wrote:
How can it be done correctly. I want to upgrade to an audio/video system that can accommodate an amp and high end speakers without causing a fire or destroying the inverter box. Any and all help and pictures will help. Thanks in advance

A car stereo is a 12 volt unit. What is your present RV stereo - 12 or 110V? If it is 12 volts what does your inverter have to do with it?

I upgraded my crummy old stock RV stereo to a nice modern new car stereo.
It was a very easy conversion to do. Aside from the custom physical mounting process, it was just a matter of hooking up the wiring to the existing system.
I noted which wired went to which speakers, tagged them all first with tape and a pen, and then simply cut the old stereo plug off and soldered the new one on.
Works like a charm.
I am so far still using the old RV speakers and going to upgrade them one of these days. Might happen sooner if I blow them up by cranking my stereo like I like to do.
The old speakers actually sound way better when being fed by a decent stereo amp compared to the old stock one. I can crank it pretty good and it doesn't distort until a much higher volume.

real4u2c, first, you need to determine if you have a 1 DIN, 1 1/2 din, or double DIN radio. Some in-dash radios require a mounting sleeve, some don't. In my 2008 Ford, e450 motorhome, I removed the cheap cd stereo and replaced it with the original factory stereo, which has an cassette player, CD player, and came modified with an input jack to play MP3's and IPODs. The old one had a sleeve, but the new one did not require one. The wiring harness fit exactly in the new stereo. Existing speakers are good enough for me. As another poster mentioned, there is no inverter box in the equation. Can you clarify that?

I replaced my no brand name Chinese stereo/dvd with a new Pioneer DVD car stereo. I was lucky that the existing cabinet hole and brackets were already double din.

I bought a motion bypass chip off Amazon which allows all functions of the player to work at all times since RV's do not have parking brakes etc. Otherwise you won't be able to play DVD's since the new stereo won't realize your RV is parked. Methods to bypass vary by manufacture but Pioneer seems the easiest with readily available aftermarket chip.

My old stereo had A/B/C speaker selection for living room, bedroom and outside. New car stereos do not have such. Instead I bought an A/B wall mount speaker switch to select between bedroom or outside. Front/Rear fader can be used to shut off bed or outside speakers if needed.

Unfortunately there aren't any car stereos with HDMI output for connecting an HD TV. I used the stereos standard coax video output and audio. Works good.

Well you didnt really give info on your RV or stereo unit. Most of the new RV stereos are also the DVD players. Most are either BOSS or JENSEN. Both are decent units. I know they are not BOSE but most are still OK.
--Having said that. Swapping one out for a nice car stereo shouldnt be a problem if the mounting is the same. If you need to modify the existing hole, then it will be more complicated, but still can be done.

A lot depends on what you are upgrading from and to.

IN my case the RV has two stereos, both high end Pinoeer units, Upgrading ... Not really practical.

The "Dash" one has a nice 150 watt Stereo amplifier as well.. It can overcome road noise right nicely when driving, Plays wonderful music if I pop in the right CD and I have a large number of right CDs.

As for Radio however.. Both of 'em suck at radio, Not enough antenna (I could fix that, I mean I design antennas often, but hey.. I have all those CD's after all)

Ahhh - my dream project. All of my friends are shocked that I haven't gone there yet with my Allegro.

With 12V power in the coach, you can go as crazy as you'd like. I'd forget about the dash mount (if that's where it is) and place the head unit somewhere central in the living space. I plan to do this in my '84 Allegro - there are lots of spots where I could hack a hole and install a modern, touch screen head unit. I have a cabinet/table combo that would be perfect as a sub cabinet. Mids and highs are easy to place so long as you can get wire to them.

But you're going to want to add amps and subs, at which point the amperage draw grows well beyond what your converter is designed to supply. I installed a 1,500 watt system (125 amps) in my limo. To do it right, you need to run some pretty fat cables directly from the batteries (I used 0-gauge with 2- or 4-gauge for short runs after the distribution blocks), circuit protection and a converter that will handle the load. Maybe a dedicated converter and dedicated 12V cabling?

I had 3 screens in the limo - a big screen mounted on the partition, one in the passenger side of the dash for my GF to watch and a 3rd smaller one mounted near an ice chest. Video distribution is not difficult. In an RV you can hide lots of A/V stuff in cabinets. In the limo I was constrained to the partition wall to mount amps, distribution blocks and wiring. The RV should be a lot easier....once I get to it.

1500 watts of stereo in a car.. Wow, that makes you a bullfrog.

(Story: In Detroit, on Belle Isle (now a state park) Young men gather with super high power Stereos in their cars, and of course the girls flock to the loudest stereo.

Same with bullfrogs,, The females flock to the male with the loudest croak.

I replaced my Jensen with a Pioneer earlier this year. The Jensen stereo in mine was a 1.5 DIN Ford radio. I used a Metra adapter to fill in the hole. Looking back I should have done this as soon as the rig hit the driveway, the factory radio is junk.

Here's how I did it in my trailer. I fabricated a place to mount the dash head unit where the old stereo was. I took the time to add a better antenna and larger speaker wire, which I routed to the new speaker locations. I also routed wire to a new self powered subwoofer. I found that the new stereo would pull too much power from the OEM 12v if I turned it up, so I added amps near the speakers, which in my case was also near a good 12v source. The amps and subwoofer are all controlled via the power antenna lead (had to run wire for that too). Ultimately it would have been very difficult to run new 12v to my upgraded stereo. Adding amps after the fact allowed the stereo to run lower power and all the components are happy. By the way, I intentionally selected a head unit that had audio inputs in the back so I could route the TV through it too. I should add that I've reserved the space under my sofa for electrical/electronics. That's where the sub and amps were installed.