has anyone installed DVD player in 03?

[Sassymama]

my husband has bought an aftermarket overhead DVD player for my 03 caravan. He will be installing it himself. Any advice on installing it? The roof has a place where the DVD player would go if was factory installed. Would that be the area to put ours in?

Thanks for any help.

[Rick99]

I just installed an OEM DVD system in my '01 last weekend. The kit came with a pattern to cut out the headliner right where the rear heater/ac controls are. The rear HVAC controls are then re-mounted onto the OEM video screen unit.

It is a good general location for the screen in a one screen set up because all the kids in the back can see it. The OEM kit came with a new metal bracket and plastic mount that replaced the one that is currently in the headliner at that location. The new plastic mount screws onto the new metal bracket and is also attached to the cieling of the car with two plastic push pins (that you'll see in your headliner). These give it the added support for the wieght of the screen.

Bottom line-- I think it's a good location, but he'll have to give some thought as to mounting it there as far as giving it enough support and whether it interferes with the rear HVAC controls. I'd imagine the kit includes some instructions on that kind of thing though.

BTW-- the DVD system I purchased was designed for an '03 caravan.

[Rick99]

I have had a couple emails from DT members about installing the DVD system in my van-- one of them referred to this thread, so I'll post my response to him/her here on the board so it can be available for everyone:

I don't have the part number for the kit I installed, but it probably wouldn't help you much anyway. I found an OEM kit-- the Mopar kit available for dealers that wanted to install DVD as a dealer-installed option. The dealer parts desk price for the kit was originally about $1100, but I bought it on eBay for $300 (I lucked out, you probably have to pay about $500 for such kits.) My kit was for '03 model year Caravans and T&C's.

You have to watch out for the DVD "systems" that you'll see on eBay that consist only of the DVD player and the screen removed from a salvaged vehicle. These do not include the special mounting bracket, wiring harnesses and other hardware you need to successfully install the system-- for the life of me I can't figure out why they don't take an extra 15 minutes to remove these things from the donor vehicle and put together a set that's actually worth something, but I guess that's their problem.

My kit came with the following:

1) Installation manual
2) DVD Screen
3) Single DVD player
4) Screen-to-player harness (that is in two parts and goes down through the A-pillar.)
5) Player-to-Radio harness
6) Power adapter harness to tap power from the power outlet harness.
7) Paper pattern to cut out the head-liner
metal support bracket that attaches the screen support to the roof.
large plastic screen support bracket that the screen mounts to-- this is inserted above the headliner and attached to the roof via the metal support bracket mentioned above.
8) Trim plugs that hide the holes you have to make in the headliner for the support
9) Remote control
10) 2 headphones
11) miscelaneous screws, etc.

If you are going to take on this project make sure you get the complete boxed kit that has all this stuff. I think there are kits from later model years that can work too (I've seen '05 kits)-- just make sure you get a kit that is not for the vans that had the slide-rail mounting system on the roof.

One other thing to keep in mind-- my van originally had a cassette player radio with a 4-disc in-dash CD changer. The radio connections all changed after 2001, so I bought an adapter harness that would allow the DVD player to connect to the older style radio. I had to remove the CD changer to install the DVD player in that location. The DVD player will not play CDs that are burned on a computer and I also missed having a CD changer. I ended up buying a used Chrysler radio with a built in 6 disk CD changer that came out of an '03 Caravan. This cost about $100 on eBay, plus $30 for an adapter harness that would allow me to connect the new radio to the old style wiring in the vehicle. The system actually works much better and I was able to connect the DVD player to the 03 radio using the original harness that came with the kit. It's nice because the controls and screen display on the newer radio also are designed for use with a DVD player.

With the kit, this whole project only took about 3 hours one Saturday morning.

[Kharrts]

That helps a lot. Thanks! I guess the hard part now will be finding a kit that has all these pieces. Nothing I can see on ebay this week comes with the brackets and templates.

[Rick99]

Glad to help!

Keep an eye out on eBay-- these aren't always available, but they do come up pretty often-- I saw a few of them go in the 2 months before I bought mine.