New center concole made from scratch *pics!*

[Insomniac119 10+ year member]

Here is my old center concole I made entirely from scratch about a year ago:

I made that one with a plastic top piece I made myself (took forever!) and fiberglass that streched from that to the floor. But it broke where the fiberglass met the plastic and I needed to make a new one.

This time my design was a little simpler and I spent a fraction of the time making this one as I did the last one. I bought a cheapo plastic cup holder thingy from autozone and made a base for it out of MDF to raise it off the floor. Next I duct taped the cd player to the plastic thingy and cut some thin peices of wood to cover it.

Then I filled in the gaps between the plastic and the wood with bondo, covered the rest of the wood with epoxy resin, and sanded everything smooth. Then I primed it with adhession (sp?) promoter for plastics, used some special paint that made the surface all bumpy, and then finally painted it with the colors that matched my interior.

Here she is:

The camera makes the brown look like it doesn't match the color of the dash, but in normal light conditions it's better. I didn't bother with pictures during the build to show the individual steps, and now I'm regretting it.

In my opinion it looks great. I'm not sure if I like it more than it's predecesor, but it sure was hell of a lot easier to make this time. Yeah, I know what you're thinking, I can't take out the head unit without breaking it. But I'm planning on keeping it there for a long time, and by the time I get a new car I'll need a new head unit anyways. The new center concole is a little smaller, but now I can open up the ash tray //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif.

Tell me what you think, I'm open to critisism (just dont make it too harsh //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/furious.gif.fc81ca146dbff91fede3ed290dbc4f4c.gif ). I know some of the techniques I used are a little unorthadox and aren't exactly the most well thoughtout. But I wanted something that I could make in less than a week and still look nice, and I think I accomplished that.

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[dont_smokerocks 10+ year member]

when the faceplate goes down does it hit that bolt? its nice, i just like your old one more.

 

[acold7dusta 10+ year member]

i like the older one better

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

i wish you fitted it to the car a little better, instead of a little "sit in the center".

but its nice how you didn't use a stock one from the store. i applaud you on customizing it.

 

[Insomniac119 10+ year member]

when the faceplate goes down does it hit that bolt? its nice, i just like your old one more.

That is not a bolt, it's the LED for the alarm, and no it doesn't hit it. It does hit any cups that are in the cup holders though. That was a design flaw I was aware of from the beginning, but decided to live with it.

 

[Railrocker 10+ year member]

It looks like your HU is really easy to steal.

 

[THUNDERBIRD 10+ year member]

i liked the first one better. but why dont u just install the cd player in the dash? and get some loom for the wires

 

[Insomniac119 10+ year member]

i liked the first one better. but why dont u just install the cd player in the dash? and get some loom for the wires

Because they factory radio slot is too old. The DIN adapter plates can't fit into it because it's too small, the head hunit is actually taller than the factory radio.

And when I made the first one I thought it would be cool to have two working radios in one car. That way I can show my friends the difference in sound quality. And I stuck with that theme this year.

 

[Railrocker 10+ year member]

Because they factory radio slot is too old. The DIN adapter plates can't fit into it because it's too small, the head hunit is actually taller than the factory radio.
And when I made the first one I thought it would be cool to have two working radios in one car. That way I can show my friends the difference in sound quality. And I stuck with that theme this year.

Dremel?

 

[Insomniac119 10+ year member]

i like the older one better

I liked the old one better too.

I basically went all out on that one. I made it exactly how I wanted to it turned out great. But it took way too long to make and didn't even hold together in the end.

With this one, I compramised form for function. And that's what I got, a compramise.

It still looks good though and dose the job, and hopefully this one will be a little more durable.

 

[Slaugh 10+ year member]

yumm... is it made of chocolate? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/yumyum.gif.0556df42231b304b9c995aefd13928a8.gif

 

[Calikid 5,000+ posts]

i like the change holder,

 

[BASSMEKANIK 10+ year member]

i like the older one better

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/iagree.gif.15d6c075ee8d3913ba26866d06993068.gif

 

[Mr Bojangles 10+ year member]

i like the change holder also.. very nice..

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

I do like the fact you still have the original radio in an older car. Looks cleaner than old school dash with a flashy new radio.