The move from steel wheels with plastic covers to aftermarket alloys for my Ibiza in August last year, made the front disc brake calipers and rear brake drums visible.  The calipers were no longer silver and the drums were matt grey with surface rust - not a good look.

So, last week I bought a yellow Foliatec brake caliper lacquer kit and a spray can of smooth finish gloss black Hammerite.  I brushed on a couple of coats of the caliper lacquer and sprayed the drums with a couple of coats of Hammerite.

The following photos were taken today whilst the sun shone.

I finally received my iPod car integration unit in the post today, ordered on 27th Jan.

The Dension unit plugs into the CD Changer socket on the back of the Alana radio in my Ibiza, and so it is necessary to withdraw the radio from the dashboard. I purchased removal tools from Halfords - ‘European Radio Removal Keys, Autoleads Item Code 256065′. These keys just fit into the little slots under the buttons at each end of the radio and release the spring retaining clips. Some people manage to improvise with feeler gauges or cut strips from an expired credit card, but I’m the sort of guy that would no doubt break something if I tried that.

I also wanted to store the iPod in the glovebox and so I removed the glovebox liner from the car by unscrewing the torx head screws and disconnecting the passenger airbag on/off keyswitch. N.B: if you don’t turn the ignition on with this switch disconnected the car will never know and thus you’ll avoid any warning lights coming on that would have to be reset.

The Dension kit I purchased was the Gateway 100 GW16AU2/VW1 model. This means that it comes with a short ‘piggyback’ wiring loom suitable for the Alana MP3 radio in the Ibiza. You remove the SEAT 20 pin mini ISO connector from the top socket on the back of the radio (on my car this only contained one yellow wire for the steering wheel controls) and plug the cable you’ve just removed into the female end of the Dension wiring loom. The 20 pin male end of the Dension loom then goes into the radio’s socket where the SEAT connector used to be, and the one remaining connector in the loom goes into one end of the Dension unit.

There is a thin black wire in the Dension wiring loom that is unterminated. You must strip the insulation off the end of this wire and attach it to a good earth point. I partially unscrewed an existing little screw on the side of the radio and wrapped the earth wire around it before screwing it back in place again.

With the Dension Gateway 100 you can opt to have an active docking cradle to mount an iPod on the dashboard or, like me, you can opt for just a trailing docking cable. The docking cradle/cable attaches to the round mini DIN connector on one end of the Dension unit.

The docking cable in the kit I ordered is labelled IPO3DC9 and allows for the battery in the latest iPods to be charged whilst connected. Charging is controlled by the Alana radio on/off switch. If your iPod is connected to the Dension Gateway and the radio is switched on (regardless of whether they key is in the ignition or not) the iPod starts charging. When the radio is switched off the iPod stops charging. Apple recently moved away from FireWire charging to USB charging only, therefore older Dension Gateway models GW15xxx with an earlier docking cable/cradle would not have charged my iPod Nano.

The Dension Gateway 100 also has a 3.5mm stereo socket next to the iPod cable and this aux socket can be used to feed sound in from a device other than an iPod. I purchased a lead from my local Maplin Electronics store, just in case I ever want to use this ‘aux in’ facility in the future.

I carefully fed the Dension Gateway back into radio cavity and into the back of the dashboard. With my hand through the side of the glovebox I managed to manipulate the cables enough to get the radio to go back into place with a bit of gentle coaxing.

I drilled a small hole in the roof of the glovebox liner just behind the airbag on/off keyswitch and fed the ipod docking cable and 3.5mm stereo jack plug cable through it. I then connected the cables to the Dension Gateway and used cable ties to secure the unit behind the dashboard. I then reconnected the airbag keyswitch and screwed the glovebox liner back into place.

Everything works OK and the sound quality is really good. You can set the unit to work in ‘iPod UI’ mode which allows you to use the iPod click wheel for audio selection, or ‘iPod GW’ mode whereby audio selection is made using the buttons on the Alana radio instead.

In iPod GW mode you can select from available iPod Playlists using the 1 button and then use the < > buttons to move through tracks. You can scan Artists, Albums and Tracks using buttons 2, 3 & 5. Button 4 allows you to choose Repeat, Random & Scan. The steering wheel mounted buttons continue to work as usual.

Album & Track names are not shown on the radio display (just track number and elapsed time) but this was something that the SEAT CD changer wouldn’t have been able to do in my car, so it’s not surprising really that the Dension Gateway doesn’t either as it uses the same interface.

Dension Audio Systems are one of the world’s leading manufacturers of connected car entertainment systems. Making it possible to have an easy to operate, ‘invisible’ solution that uses the car’s original equipment.

I decided to buy my first Apple iPod today.  I’ve been thinking about it for a while to be honest, but today I made my mind up to get one.

I knew I didn’t want the shuffle, but was undecided about whether to get a nano, classic, or touch.  Thanks to Tom P, Dan, Chris M, et al who throughout the course of the day all came up with different opinions on the best iPod to buy!

The classic has plenty of storage space, but it’s on a hard disk which could mean there’s a higher chance of a breakdown.  The touch looks cool but I doubt whether I would use the extra features enough to warrant the extra purchase price.  So anyway, by 3:30pm I had finally settled on a 16GB nano - in black.  I also purchased an Apple universal dock, 3.5mm mini jack to phono plugs audio lead and a mains charger.  I got 20% off the cost of it all as I used the remaining discount voucher issued last year.

My plan is to copy all my existing CD albums onto my notebook computer (hmm., I think that’s illegal) and then onto the nano.  Once I’ve done that, I can connect the nano to my home hi-fi amplifier via the dock and have a convenient way of choosing the music I want to listen to.  I also plan to get a Dension Gateway adapter for the car in due course.

Next job is to download and install iTunes 8…

Happy 2009 everyone.

Now, what was that New Year’s resolution I made? Erm… no, can’t remember.

Just a quick message to thank all my friends and family for their Christmas wishes and for the presents received.  Thanks also to Louise & Vernon for arranging our exclusive Christmas lunch yesterday at the Bacchus Restaurant, Bromsgrove.

I hope you all had a great day too.  It’s back to work for me today; the start of our sale, so I’m expecting it to be a very busy day.