Chevy Spark (tow car) / NSA RV Products RB-4000 Receiver Style Ready Brake Installation

Bought the kit for the Ready Brake Surge Brakes because towing the Spark worked fine but stopping the Coachmen Catalina Class C was uncomfortably long with the tow car pushing us. I looked at the electronic brake buddy type, which are $1K+ and well, the surge brakes are simpler and a lot cheaper. The downside was installing the cable. I had pulled the front fascia off the Spark to install the Blue Ox tow bar so I knew how and had to do it again to make the surge brakes work without binding up. It needed to be within 2 inches up or down from the tow bar connection and in the middle of the car. How I did it was simply how I did it. Others may do it differently. I share this because of how much I appreciate the help I get from the Internet from others.
The Spark does have a double wall firewall, which means drilling the appropriate holes as per the manufacturer's instructions. I did struggle to drill a 1" hole through the inside firewall (manufacturer's recommendation) because it isn't perfectly flat top to bottom. I would try to keep expanding my hole from the initial hole to something like 3/4 inch and see if you can fit a socket through that hole first. I didn't quite need the 1 inch hole and it got weird to get it that big. Locating the hole slightly lower than my detail shows might help because it was above the hole that I got into excess metal that wouldn't go away after drilling.
My details show custom made brackets for things like the 7 pin connector mount and the front cable loop mount. The brackets are hardware store stuff bent and drilled and trimmed to aid in mounting the stuff where I needed it to be. Again, I had to trim holes in the fascia. I will try to come back and add the finalized fascia later.

Wouldn't use spray foam insulation to seal hole next time. Risks friction.

Do not use spray foam to seal hole. Can get into sliding cable line and foul it up...

2013 (14,15) Chevy Spark Dash Speaker Upgrade / Pioneer TS-F1034R

After upgrading the stock radio, the next logical step is to replace the dash speakers with two way speakers. The LS model says it has four speakers and the upgrade to the LT models pro-ports to increase the speakers to six. In reality, the front speakers gain a tweeter, which is happening here. The speakers are now poly pro rather than paper and go from one to two way. They sound better now but as they burn in they will sound better and better as time goes on. The pictures should tell the story. In order not to cut any wires, I used the extension wires provided by Pioneer and added two plug in clips at both ends of the extension wires to convert to the original plug. I only had blue wire clips so I had to fold back the wire ends to double them before I clamped them on. Red would have been closer to the wire diameter. I also used the red wire pliers dot to smash the clip on. It takes some force to get the spurger to unclip the speaker covers from the dash. Since it is plastic, it shouldn't leave a mark.
Note: These particular speakers are 4 ohm and the stock are 8. In theory it should take more power to get the 4 ohm up to the same volume as the 8. If you are worried about running high volumes for long periods of time and generating too much heat, you probably want to replace the 8 ohms with 8. I did not have to increase my volume to reach the same level of sound as the stock after installation but your mileage may vary. I posted this mainly to show how to do the job, not to recommend these particular speakers, although they do work.

2013 Chevy Spark Mylink radio upgrade from LS to LT model

Recently bought a used 2013 Chevy Spark LS to tow behind a Class C RV and ended up liking the car enough to sell off our normal run around car for daily use. The Spark was more fun.
The stock radio, however was blah. I saw the LT model’s Mylink radio and thought it would be a neat upgrade, if I could procure a used "take off" unit for a good price. 

Shopping online brought this to our garage:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/192109883673?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

(2013 Chevy Spark LT Mylink head unit, with fascia, bottom plug with small bottom fascia, in really good shape)
to replace 2013 Chevy Spark LS base model radio with aux input. I offered 140 plus 10 shipping for the head unit and accessories and the deal was done.

I got a set of plastic spurgers (referenced below)  to help pry off the dash fascia, removed the fascia, unscrewed the head unit’s four phillips mounting screws and drew out the head unit. I had to use a small flat blade screwdriver to release the tab on the squarish multi-plug, which then is released by pushing down on the release lever, sliding the plug out. The cable running to the other side of the radio was tough to release and I struggled with it but finally got it to come off. I then plug and played the replacement head unit into place restoring the cable and the white multi-plug.
Turning on the new head unit displayed a “LOCKED” message on the main screen after five seconds. Turns out the LT upgrade Mylink head unit is locked to the VIN number of the original vehicle, thus the locked message.
I researched the problem on the internet for a few days. Most of the help with the hardware/eprom problem came from this Cruze site:

http://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/36-gen1-audio-electronics/55641-mylink-upgrade-diy-11.html

and various foreign sites with guys in Russia, etc. trying to swap out Chevy hardware from vehicle to vehicle.
This one was pivotal because it showed me where to find the eprom chip I needed to reprogram:

https://www.drive2.ru/l/6210325/

The guy who sold me the unit on eBay said he didn’t know it was locked and gave me a partial refund and offered to author a letter stating he was the original owner and removed the unit to install an aftermarket stereo. Rather than go to the dealer and see if I could get them to use their Scantool II to reprogram the head unit for $60 or so I decided to make a project out of it.

What I learned:

I repeatedly tried to change the VIN number on the chip, replacing what appeared to be the old VIN with my car’s number. One problem was the number of characters displayed in hex on the chip didn’t seem to be comparable with the 17 characters in my car’s VIN. So two tries at reading and replacing the VIN resulted in “LOCKED.” I did read however that others had wiped the eprom chip clean, reinstalled the radio and the logic unit of the car initialised the eprom with the VIN. I haven’t removed the head unit to re-read the chip since I wiped and installed it. Since it now works, I can assume it’s probably so. Bottom line: the Mylink now works.
I am going to post some pictures which hopefully are worth a few thousand words.



References:

Kris Kasprzak Youtube video with links to software and notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ChYNwunUE
—————————————————
Chip clip to allow read and write of chip without desoldering:

SOIC8 SOP8 Test Clip For EEPROM 93CXX / 25CXX / 24CXX in-circuit FAST SHIP USA

http://www.ebay.com/itm/262294374999?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT———————————————————
USB stick programmer to plug into usb port of PC (powered by software from Kasprzak links, referenced above)
SMAKN® USB Programmer CH341A Series Burner Chip 24 EEPROM BIOS LCD Writer 25 SPI Flash 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013Q5P3ES/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
————————————————————————————
Neiko 20765A Auto Trim Removal | Heavy Duty Nylon Fiber Composite Body Installer Pry Scraper Fastener Panel Molding | 11-Piece Set 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H2QWFH0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
—————————————————————
3ft CablesOnline USB 2.0 Mini-B 5-Pin to Mini-B 5-Pin Male/Male Cable, USB2-5503 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00T28JQUG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1