Haha. You'll either end up selling the truck or become an expert yourself over time. Just wait until you delve into replacing the actuators, fixing the heated seats, or stopping a roof leak. You really have to love these trucks to keep all the stuff going. You will soon enough become intimately familiar with the interior.

I used a Kenwood head unit with the metra axxess wiring harness and steering wheel retaining module. I kept the factory speakers and amp and I feel like I have pretty good sound. You'll find that installing the stuff is the easy part once you get started. The hard/annoying part is disassembling the entire dash just to get the head unit out. You have to use the patience of a brain surgeon to get the door panels off if you're putting in new speakers. If you break one of your door panels your wallet is in for a world of hurt.

 

hummer h2 radio buttons on amazon

Tim

 

Hey Guys (Hummer on Fumes, MixManSC, H2Miami and whoever else),
did you have to get an install/ dash kit kit for the installation of your head units.

I have heard that when installing aftermarket headunits you need a installation kit, but then when I was looking at the dash piece, it almost looks as if it might cover up the headunit without an install kit.
Please let me know what you came up with. I really want to learn about working on these truck versus paying someone money i dont have to do it
Thanks

 

You'll definitely need something to go around or you'll have gaps all over. I have a black piece of plastic that snaps around the head unit. I believe the kits are less than $10.

 

Thank Hummer On Fumes. The picture helps alot. So, this kit you got (or that piece of black plastic) is it Hummer specific?

 

No I believe it is a Metra generic dash kit for GM
"Metra 95-2001 Dash Kit"

 

Correct.... you do need an install kit. The catch is with retaining the stock Bose amp and retaining use of the steering wheel controls. The adapter harnesses and electronics for those are not terribly cheap. You will need a few items in addition to the aftermarket stereo itself.

Main adapter harness - Metra GMOS-04 - this adapts the wiring, retains the vehicle chimes, and interfaces with the Bose amp.

Steering wheel controls interface - Metra ASWC-1 - this allows your aftermarket stereo to use the factory steering wheel controls. This is technically optional, the steering wheel controls just would not work if you skip this.

Antenna adapter - needed for most GM vehicles since GM insists on putting a stupid tiny antenna connector on the factory stereos.

Installation mounting kit. I am not fond of the Metra one I got. The way the side pieces attach to the front ring has some loose leaving my stereo sagging and unsecure on the right side. Now I need to pull the whole dash and console back apart to fix it. I know exactly where and what the problem is though and I guess the kit would be fine but GLUE the left and right pieces to the front piece before you use it. I'm probably going to order a Scosche or American International kit and swap it out to be honest. The American International kit GMK421 also includes a pocket in case you want to install a single DIN stereo. Might be a chance you could come up with a way to use that pocket it comes with to delete the Onstar....

On a 2003 there is a 99.9% chance that prior owners never took advantage of the Onstar digital upgrade a number of years back. This means the old analog Onstar system is useless garbage in your H2. You can find what is needed to upgrade it to the newer digital Onstar system, remove it and repurpose bits of it, or just yank its fuse and leave it there. There is a pocket that was available to replace the Onstar module in the dash giving you extra storage but I think those are now near impossible to find. Just a year and a half ago I found a dealership that had some and posted about it on here but I think I've read that others can no longer find them and that dealer sold out of them. Plenty of other options too. Can just remove it and get a piece of black automotive carpet and line the pocket. Put something else there like off road light switches, etc. On my install, I do not like the way aftermarket stereo microphones look sticking out somewhere, nor do I think aftermarket head units built in GPS antennas work well unless mounted on the roof which I also dont like. When I pulled the Onstar out I rerouted its GPS antenna cable and microphone cable to the back of the stereo pocket and used those. The built in Garmin GPS in my Kenwood works excellent using that factory Onstar roof GPS antenna. The factory Onstar mic already in the headliner works great for the built in bluetooth phone capabilities on the Kenwood as well. I had to get an adapter for the GPS antenna cable end and had to just cut and splice the mic wire connector on.

Oh and one other thing... 2003 was the only year that had the AM/FM antenna on the roof (passenger side). All other years have the AM/FM antenna on the front fender side vent.

 

MixManSC, Thanks!!
I actually appreciate the info you posted.
I have a PAC adapter that I didnt use that crosses to GM truck radios, will that work? Given I bought it for the intention of putting a subwoofer and amp into my truck (which actually had the same headunit). Will that work to keep the bills and whistles going like you said or do I need another one?

Also, as for the roof mounted antenna... thats one reason why I like the '03 so much... the antenna there definitely gives it a hard core truck look.

 

It will depend on the part number of the PAC adapter but quite possible that it will work. There are a lot of different models PAC has that offer different features and integration levels. For example some might not support Onstar which probably does not matter at all on that since the old analog Onstar in our H2's can no longer be used unless it happened to be upgraded to the new digital system.

 

From my experience the PAC harness was terrible and I had to switch to Metra to fix all the issues I was having

Look up the Amazon reviews for PAC RP5-GM11
There is something up where they don't mesh with the bose amp or speakers. They cause a hiss or some of the speakers to have low volume. And sometimes there's no sound when you power on the car because it can't talk to the amp properly. I had all these problems when I installed it. I returned it and bought the metra axxess gmos 04. It fixed all the issues I was having. The only downside to the metra is you have to buy a separate device for the steering wheel controls.