After 2 years my sun shade got re-covered in cream faux leather, a vast improvement on the sticky black piece of Abs there previously. I'll post a daylight photo tomorrow

Yep, theres an AV input at the back as well
I think the aerial runs to behind the HEVAC at the mo, to those metal boxes. Probably I shd relocate both silver boxes to the cubby box ( at some point). I think the input switching for the screen is embedded in those boxes

My Defender has done this for the last 20yrs, and no issues. That doesn't help solve the issue, but might put your mind at rest. That said, if you crack it, then I'm all ears

FInal product. I'll work on the colour match if i get seriously bored

This is a "dash off view". These two boxes are buried behind the HEVAC. The two inline fuses in the foreground are on the YW and UW wires that you see going into the top box.. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the other end, but black coax (you can see it coiled and joined in the lower foreground) seems to go in that end (presumably from the aerial, on the roof. I need to track the cabling that goes up to the seatrests, but IIRC that is the same blue cabling

Here's the wiring for the RSE - the blue audio cabling is coming from two magic silver boxes (see next)

This was the old look of the centre console - you can see 3 switches - headphones, remote sensor (presumably for Sony RC above) and power on/ off

First off - there is a Sony remote. This still works - and will change the inputs through video 1/2/ Navi (blank) and TV (fuzz). Presumably fires the sensor connected in the face of the wooden console to do this

Tray covered in "leather" - unfitted the foam makes it look untidy - but the foam is used to make sure it moulds to all the contours of the console when fitted. I will post a photo of the fitted unit tomorrow

Still hand editing links, but closing in on the solution - here's the wooden tray

OK - i'm an imgur virgin, here goes - start point, with aluminium angle screwed to the bottom and two wood pieces to brace the top hinge - someone either cut the top edge, or the plastic weld simply just broke, so the hinges were floating

Hooray, now I have to figure out how the hell i did that

lol - the shocks i took off mine did little more than act as height limiters, they went up and down like concertinas. Gas-filled Monroes will give you the best ride for the price IMHO. Bilstein are in a different price bracket. Boge are only available as fronts, for some reason

Too true. Mission complete, as of today. Did a tray out of wood, and the front lined in a few mm of foam with a distressed ( to make it look the same) PU leather covering. Wood's good as it takes multiple retaining staples for the covering. Not sure how I would have achieved the same effect using plastic tbh. The foam helps mould to the multiple contours of the centre console

I need to pull my hevac off, but I've got two small metal boxes there, maybe 3x5x10 cm, coax going in one side and audio jacks out the other: video and l/r which heads to the dvd player. They seem to be interconnected too.
I also need to check which cables are going up to the head rests

Tnx Richard, I have two on the roof, so I guess one was TV, and the other probably after mkt radio. HNH has one tho, as per his YouTube vid

Yes, get lots of spare plastic bits. You will probably need to depin the connector, or cut lots of wires and resolder them. May be easier to just respray the replacement

Thanks Richard, I'm not sure I'd ever crack it by myself. Embarassingly I've never entirely worked out what does what - partly because the TV has never worked, and partly because various bits are buried in different random places and it's only by elimination that I work out that they must be something to do with the RSE. I will photograph what I have - it'll be a bit like Krypton factor to assemble... congrats on your retirement btw

Jeez, someone just raised the stakes. Let me know how it goes HnH, I don't have the vhs, but all the rear seat wiring/ decoders seem to be there, buried behind the HEVAC

Ooh, sounds good. I think you just volunteered to be our pathfinder Morat :-)

I hear you Leo - I nearly used the aluminium tray from a roast chicken today... So far I've rigged up an angled aluminium bar on the base to support wood struts to brace the hinges for the cubby box lid, and put two x 2cm thicknesses of ply on the base to lift the single DIN unit up to where it will sit snugly underneath the wooden Autobiography switch unit in your photos. The ply will get covered in "leather", and then I'll fashion two side pieces to fill the 2-3cm gap either side of the unit, also covered in PU leather. There are so many contours going on it was just going to be impossible to do it all as one piece. It's only a couple of kids who will look at it anyway : o), and they don't care as long as it plays their favourite cartoons.
That makes me think, in these days of isolation - maybe I should just hook the RR up to the trickle charger and we can put the kids in the back of the car to watch cartoons while we potter around the house/ garden - I think I may have just found the path to corona virus sanity