Just to be safe, disconnect the battery to prevent any injury to yourself or any of the sensitive electronics you're messing around with.

The faceplate needs to be removed first. Fold the face down like you're going to insert a CD, and pull it strait out, starting on the right side of the unit.

Blaupunkt requires a special tool to pull the head unit out of the dash. There a little one-way clips on the sides that allow it to slide in easily but prevent it from pulling out.

You need to use a tool to push the clips back in place and pull the head unit out. You can purchase one or make one from a coat hanger.

There are two small access holes on each side, the puller slides into these holes, down the side of the head unit, and presses the clips in.

Then you can carefully use them to pull the head unit out of the dash by sliding it forward.

Pull the head unit fully out of the dash and disconnect all the wires where they go into the back of the head unit. There will be at least 2 connectors, one for the speakers and power, and one for the radio antenna.

The cage around the stereo needs to be removed, as the stereo you bought comes with one designed for it.

The cages are held in by bending small tabs around the perimeter of the cage outward.

You'll need to use a flat head screw driver to unbend these tabs enough to slide the cage out.

Sony, Alpine, Eclipse, Kenwood, JVC and Pioneer wire colors match the colors on the Metra wire harness with one exception, the red (switched power) and yellow (constant power).

You have a choice to make, you can either solder red to yellow and yellow to red, OR re-pin the wires on the Metra adapter to keep colors matching.

I chose to swap the pins, I'll cover that later on.

Swapping the Metra harness Pins: The pins swap super simple if you have a very small flat head screwdriver like the set linked in the tools list above.

If you look at the Metra adapter from the plug end, one side of each pin has a small slot in the plastic. If you insert a tiny flat head screwdriver next to the pin on the same side that has the tiny slot, it will flatten out a small retaining pin and allow you to pull out the pin.

So, insert a tiny screwdriver to flatten the pin, and pull the entire wire out of the connector.

To install, simply bend the pin back up, and re-insert where you want it.

Trim, twist, solder, and shrink wrap the connections for each of the wires. This is probably the longest part of the process, but it's pretty simple.

You can use crimp connectors instead, but you might as well do it right.

Slide the new stereo's cage into the dash and bend numerous tabs around the perimeter to keep it locked in place.

My Pioneer unit has hands-free bluetooth phone functionality, which requires a microphone be wired and placed near the steering wheel or console.

If you wish to install a mic, you'll probably want to do a little research to determine exactly where you want to place it. You will probably want to disassemble some of steering column cowling to route your wires nicely.

This wasn't a functionality I cared about, so I chose to not install it. Honestly, the car is too loud to make talking on the phone a reasonable proposition.

The Pioneer unit also comes with a USB and line in connection on the back of the unit. I did wire both of these up and routed them into the driver's side pocket under the headlight and start button panel.

Plug the Metra harness into the car, and the the other end into the stereo.

Plug the antenna wire into the stereo. The Blaupunkt unit uses this little adapter on the end of the antenna wire that you may not need. The Pioneer I used did not need it.

With the unit plugged in but not locked into the dash, try it out to make sure all your wire connections are working.

Try the stereo with key on, key off, key back on. Make sure it keeps it's settings, and everything seems to work.

The backward wires in the harness above will appear to function if wired incorrectly, but the stereo will forget all it's settings with key off, so test it now.

Once everything works, slide the head unit all the way in, locking it in place.

Set your options, twist the knobs, play with the settings, and go for a nice cruise with some of your favorite tunes.