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Hey there, names J.C. and I'm new to here with this being my first post/question.. I just recently bought a 2012 Fusion SE 2.5L that I am trying to make more presentable for my wife to drive and have already switched all the interior lights to LEDs, change all headlights and exterior lights to LEDs including switchbacks for turn signals, taken off the old tint and had new tint put on and put window visors on it, have cleaned and steamed the interior, gotten a lot of different interior trim pieces from pick-and-pulls, switched out the shocks and struts, and just got through replacing the front lower control arms last night and have done all this within a month, since I have had it. It's definitely a good project car since I have a 2017 Nissan Altima that I've done the same to but my altima is slammed and sitting on some concave Vossen wheels and I'm pretty much done with it and got it to where I want it so I figured the Fusion would be fun to fix up. Enough about me though let's get to the point so hopefully somebody will help me out. I have a spoiler that is the correct color and fits perfectly on the car, it's not a fusion spoiler though it came off a Milan which I know has a lot of interchangeable parts, the spoiler has a taillight on it so my question is what have people done with the third brake light on the trunk when installing a spoiler on a fusion that didn't originally come with one? I know this has had to come up before but I've searched the many fusion forums and can't find anything. It would really look silly have a taillight on the spoiler and directly sitting on another brake light plus the two taillights so is there a piece that goes into the original spot of the trunk light that's painted or have people just had to live with it with no options? Thanks in advance and sorry for the ridiculously long post. -
Hello fellow fusion owners - I just did this, I used to be a professional installer for a major retail chain (yellow tag). I thought I would post to give everyone a heads up on what exactly this entails. READ EVERYTHING BEFORE STARTING. Tools Required: Drill (nice to have a cordless impact and drill) 10mm socket ford 5.5mm socket 8mm socket torx set panel popper surface grinder for screw gun self tapping screws with lock washers line cutters flush side cutters wire splitters Long flat head driver thats been grinded down to form a sharp flat point crimp caps tape (good stuff by 3m, dont go cheap) Flashlight Where to start: Firstly Removing the battery before any installation is good, in this case it is required. 1) Remove the battery: on the front of it is a clamp held down by 8mm bolt. Then the negative and positive leads are held on by 10mm nuts. The negative cable can come off but you will have to remove the entire clamp for the positive lead. Make sure these dont touch. Note: Once battery is removed look behind where it was, you will see a bunch of metal lines. Directly above it is a wire grommet. This is where you will be going in through. 2) Dash Disassembly: Use a thin plastic tool to help with your panel popper, on the drivers side there is a oval like dash piece facing the drivers door, this pops right off with some care. The lower dash that forms a U shape under the sterring column pops right off too, however it is hinged at the bottom and 2 x 8mm bolts are at the hinge to remove it once it is popped off the dash and hanging. There is a Temp Guage wire set that is push-pinned in along this U dash piece, use your panel popper and carefully pop it up and unplug it. After the 2 x 8mm bolts the whole piece comes out. The drivers sill plate pops right up and off, can be done by hand or carefully with tool. Pop up the sill curve that curves up the door as well from the sill plate. On the bottom of the steering column there is 1 torx and 1 5.5mm bolt that should be removed, release the steering wheel tension arm and carefull pry these apart (top from bottom halves). The bottom piece will require some finess so be paitent and careful. If they stick together hard on the inside just use your plastic pry tool to get them apart. Leave the top half on on the steering wheel. 3) Radio Disassembly: I have a manual, im assuming that autos are close to similiar. There is a plastic piece around the shifter that needs to be gently pryed up. Make sure to put the pry pressure on thick areas and not thin areas. Once that is done there is a U shaped silver piece at the bottom, this pops up first. Then starting at the bottom left side on the silver trim that wraps up all around the radio, start gently prying at it, give it some flex and with judgement you can tell where its push pinned in, use plastic pry tool at those points. Work it all the way up the left side, then do the right side. Then do it for the area above the radio and it will all come loose. BE GENTLE these peices can easily break. If you have the sync system like my, or even the base system. You have 3 components. Screen, Radio (cdplayer housing) and then a cover with controls over both. 2 x 8mm bolts at bottom of radio (left and right sides), remove. Start at the bottom of the radio under it where you can grab and gently pull forward. The radio face should come off. Leave plugged in and just let sit down. 2 more 8mm bolts holding cdplayer in, remove them. The whole cd player comes out towards you. Note: ( This is where we will tap in for the line output converter ) 3) Trim and rear seat removal: Drivers side trim is easy to remove and all pops off. The darker trim behind the seatbelt is called a B pillar. The bottom half or darker half is what will be removed. The back seat has two levels under where people would normally sit, they move one way and the seat pulls up. Once you have that done this is a little tricky to get it out. On both sides the seat is hooked in in the back. You will have to lower the upper portion of the backseat down on both sides (one side at a time) halfway so that you can push the bottom seat back to unhook it. Once that is done remove it out one side of vehicle, flip it over and put it on your roof so it dont get dirty. One the drivers side remove the rear door sill plate, then 2 x 10mm bolts holding a white piece on the sill. Then work with panel popper for the B pillar removal. Now you got direct access to run all wires and tie stuff in. 4) Power wire: Poke the left side of the grommet with your long flat head driver. Do it right under the little circle imprinted on the grommet so its a bit away from the wire bundle. If you puncture the wire bundle it could be insanely expensive to repair or replace so be careful. Poke it a few times so its good and ready for a large 4ga wire. Have some soap or wire lube ready. Use line cutters to cut the 4ga wire end at an angle, tape it 1" back from the tip of the flat driver, and tape it TIGHT. Not alot of tape but tight enough to not come loose. Puke it through nice and easy after applying lube, will slide right in ( thats what she said ). Push in a good 6". Go under the drivers dash and lay down with flashlight and a knife. This will require some finess. You will need to reach one hand in the dash and cut the tap away from the wire so you can pull about a foot of the wire in. Then remove the flat head driver. Make sure the 4ga power cable isnt gonna catch on anything and pull it through the large open hole facing the seat on the left side of the drivers dash. Then run it well tucked in all the way to under the rear seat. Leave it coiled there for now. Leave a little more than needed in the engine compartment just in case, like 4-6" more. 5) RCA's + Line output converter: Behind the cd player there are several harnesses. The largest is the power and speaker connecter. Unplug. Notice there are some wires bundled together and some are just loose after removing some tape. The bundles onces are the speakers that are no doubt covered in a metallic film. Leave the metal film on but unwrap it away for now. Most of the wires are twisted in pairs. 4 total of them together for 4 speaker locations. There is 1 twisted pair apart from the rest DO NOT TOUCH THESE, DATA WIRES. Of the 4 twisted pairs that are together. The rears tend to be the darker ones of the 4 sets. 1 left pair and 1 right pair. There are several ways to go about testing these to find out which speaker is which. Most people use a AA battery with taped on +/- wires to do a "speaker pop". Ideally if you look around or call places you can get info as to the speaker wire colors of the rear speakers at the radio, and go off of that. A line output converter has both left and right channels. Ideally you could tap into both rear speakers like I did, but tap into one with both left and right leads for the L.O.C. will work just fine. I used speaker wire to do it and let it hand out over the gas pedal to attach to the L.O.C. so I could adjust it after putting dash back together. Run the RCA's from the L.O.C. under the carpet, DEEP in the carpet so they dont hit the steering spindle. If this is for subs it doesnt make a difference running it along drivers side with power wire. Otherwise for 4channel applications run it passanger side. and Use same notes for passanger side sill panels and B pillar removal. 6) Remote Turn on: Under the sttering column on the left side is a large rectangle plug, thats the main ignition harness. MOST LIKELY a purple with green stripe wire is your accessory. BUT TEST WITH A Digital Multimeter. Youtube videos on how to test for accessory wires if you dont know how. Tap into it and run the RCA's and remote turn on same way as the power wire to under the back seat. 7) Amp mounting: This is your choice but I screwed it into the lower drivers side back of the fold down seat. Making sure it wouldnt bind when folded up. Screw it into the seat with screws that are 1/2" or less in length. 8) Ground wire: This is a tricky ordeal. If you look under your car ( even professionals make this mistake ) There is a gas tank under the rear seat under the chassis metal. On the drivers side portion of under the rear seat you will notice a wire run. There is a plastic piece portion right under the folding portion of the seat that lifts off of a threated mounting point. To the left of this by .5-1" is a good area to drill for your ground connection. Use the surface grinder adapter for your drill to clean the paint off of it. Use a very short self tapping screw to get the hole started, once it grabs remove it and shine your light under the car, if you see the light you are in the right spot. Use a non-self tapping screw and a lock washer and get the ground cable screwed. Put 1-2 self tappers with locking washers around the metal piece to keep it from coming loose. 9) Connect the amp and subs: Your battery should still be removed so none of the wires are hot. Hook everything up paying close attention to what wires go where. You got a new car so hopefully your using all new product. Reinstall the radio the revesing the way it was removed. You can leave the bezels off till last but secure the radio in and face to the radio. Now reinstall the battery, connect the positive 4ga cable to the battery. If all your wires are connected check your amp settings and put them on 1/4. Start your car so it can have a good supply of voltage. Turn the radio up to the volumn you usually listen to it at. Bass at zero, mids up 1 bar, trebles up 3 bars is a good setting. Tune your amp to a decent bass song, to a good desired noise to signal ratio. If you need help on settings of amp and what they do, youtube it. Once it sounds good, shut the car off and reassemble it all. Dont forget about the bracket for the battery and always check for tools under the hood before starting.
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