Hi forum people.

I'm upgrading from a '96 to a 2000 Town & Country.

1. The clear plastic in front of the instrument gauges on the 2000 is cracked. The '96 is perfect. How hard is it to swap?

2. I want to swap the speakers, but the door connectors are different. Is there a conversion harness / pigtail or anything I can use to interconnect between the 4-conductor and the 6-conductor plugs?

3. The 2000 has grey leather electric seats. The driver's side has memory. The '96 has pinstripe grey fabric seats, no memory, and the passenger side is manual. I don't like the leather, and it's hardened with age. Is it possible to swap the seats, or can you recommend a brand of seat cover that works?

Thanks!!

 

#1...Simple.............

Remove the bezels from both cars, remove the clusters from both cars....

There are 4 torx screws...(T15??) holding the lenses to the cluster. Just make sure the trip reset buttons are in the same place...otherwise its a straight forward swap.

#2...Im guessing the donor car has Infinity system.....It changes most of the in car audio harness....so there is No Way to "Plug and Play it"... Your best bet is get the audio system wiring diagrams and add what needs to be added to the existing harness, Which will probably mean running extra wiring from the radio into the doors....(Suddenly it hardly seems worth it huh?? )

#3... Again ..simple. Just swap the seats, leaving the frames and pedestals in the vehicle. I believe there are 4 -10 or 13 mm bolts that hold the seat bottom to the track. I dont remember exacvtly where the seat switch goes, so you may have to make a "Razor Slit" in the fabric to refit the switches....No Biggie, the trim panel covers it up.

 

Thank you so much for your reply!

#1 - Can you point me to accurate instructions on the 3rd Gen bezel removal to get at the cluster? I have a Haynes manual which is totally unhelpful.

#3 - Thanks - I'll think about this!

#2 - Actually I figured it out! Getting the 96 four-conductor into the 2000 six-conductor door position is like this: On the four-conductor connector, the outer two are power; hook red to red and the other one to black. The inner two are sound; hook them to the purple or brown solids. The striped purple and striped brown go to the dash; you can ignore these.

The 2000 dash connectors are four conductor. The outer two come from the doors (disconnected) and the inner two come straight from the stereo. Hook the '96 dash speakers to the inner two wires; they have their own bass cut resistor so they want the direct sound.

I used tap connectors from Home Despot to get into the wires without cutting off any of the plugs. I used F connectors with rubber shields to connect to the dash speaker plugs, because there was no exposed cable on the radio side of the capacitor. If the rubber fails, I might lose connectivity there, and maybe something cleverer would have to be done.

A new question arises: Do you know the part number of the Infinity door woofer for the '96? Is it the same as other years or other brands/models of car? I can't seem to find this out online. Turns out one of my precious '96 door woofers is much weaker than the other and I'd like to replace it.

Thanks again!

 

One more, if you will all permit me:

#4: I am thinking about trading out the leather-ish panels for the cloth panels (they are both grey interiors). Do all six panels just pop out, including the ones on the driver and passenger doors? (I count six in all, but I may be missing something.)

 

Yes they interchange....BUT....you must do ALL ofr them as a matched set. If you look carefully, there are contour differences between the two that only allows them to fit "Properly" as a set. I believe the "Rocker moldings and KickPanels" were included in this as would be the tailgate liner., but I dont recall for sure. (96 - 00 share the same body specs 1995 and 2001 are tottaly different animals.)

 

Thanks again. Things are shaping up nicely!

Two more things have come up, and I was hoping you and the friendly folks here can help.

#1 ~ I'm still improving the sound system. Do you know, or do you have a resource for this kind of info: What are the part numbers for the door speakers in the '96 Infinity 10 system, and are they interchangeably the same as the speakers in the back walls? Where would you get them? The local Chrysler parts dept says they can't get them anymore.

#2 ~ Okay, this is weird.

I can't shake the impression that the '96 "sounds" better inside. I don't understand what it is... the 2000 feels like a plastic / cardboard / thin metal box compared to the 96, just sitting in it, even parked. The 96 has a luxuriously quiet sound, like a foam-lined recording studio. I think this is part of why the radio sounded so much better. It sounds like a Lexus. Even the way the doors close is muffled and smooth. The '00 sounds more like a Toyota or something. Like everything makes more noise and I have to turn up the radio more to cover it up. Even though it's in better shape and looks factory-new. Like the materials are cheaper/thinner, or there's less sound cushioning to save money. Do you have any kind of explanation for this at all? I still have the leather seats in it, so it could just be that the fabric upholstery quiets the whole car down. But it seems like more than that.