• Piece of plastic from an old Dell laptop
• 2 - 1in. screws (thin is good)

I was reading on www.mini2.com a nice little DIY tutorial on installing the jack under the climate controls. I really liked this idea and I was just going to follow the directions there and link to it from my site, however, I believe the DIYer had an '03, whereas I have an '05. My MINI decided to chuck me a few curve balls along the way, so I thought I'd share my experience.

That is where I wanted to install the jack (just like on mini2). One BIG thing you will notice in this image, is that the top part, the place where the screw is, and the bottom tray... ARE ALL CONNECTED, unlike in the mini2 tutorial. Here is the trick with the '05: remove the torx20 screw, unsnap the two tabs on the top of the piece, and then on the side of this whole thing you will see two fins down by there the lower vents are.

These flaps are very bendy, and the trick is that while you are bending these flaps out with your fingers, you have to hold the top flap (in the middle) down with your thumbs while turning the entire piece towards you. Why towards you?

Because in the '05 it is overlapped in the middle (the two tabs on the side on top, and a long flat piece in the middle underneath).

To be able to get that overlapped unattached, you are going to have to loosen up the center consol so that there is a little bit more room to push things around.

First remove the two philips screws in the cup holder.

Then remove the ring holding your shift cover down by sneaking a thin plastic edge between the ring and the consol, and then lifting the entire ring all the way up as to not crease your leather. (Be careful not to get a little too rambunctious, you don't want to snap the four pegs that are on that center ring)

Now you can maneuver the piece out of the middle. (and believe you me, it takes some maneuvering, so just be patient.)

Now that the middle tray is out, there are two things that need to get done.
1) Drill 3 holes. 1 1/4in hole, and 2 guide holes (smaller then the screw you are using)
2) Find a suitable backing to keep the jack from popping out.

Keeping in tune with using old computer parts, I found this old Dell laptop piece which would be perfect for the backing.

Drill two guide holes, exactly 20cm apart from each other.

Then, using a piece of paper and a couple piece of tape, mark out a center cross, where you need to drill the 1/4in. hole, and 2 side crosses 2 cm apart from each other. Drill the holes as straight as possible.

You can see by how the plastic twisted and didn't turn into shavings when I drilled. That proves I wasn't kidding when I said the plastic was really bendy.

Finally, head back out to the car and push in the aux connector into the 1/4in hole, then using the 2 screws, secure the connector to the center piece like in the picture below.

You can bend or clip off whatever excess screw you have poking out from behind.

Wiggle the center piece back in the middle by reversing the way you got it out. You can store the excess wiring underneath the center piece. Once the center piece is in place, put the two cup holder screws back, the center ring of the shifter down, and the torx20 screw from the center tray.

The picture shows you a view from underneath, but when you are sitting up, you can't see it at all.

And that's all there is to it!