Fabricating a slot load DVD drive to be flush/smooth

**jdc753** · 09-30-2010, 09:53 PM

I did some digging and couldn't quite seem to find any pics or people who have done this, and I know people have. Just wanting to get my slot load drive flushed into the dash and 1 single unit, basically all I want to see is the slot, button and LED, maybe less but just wondering if anyone has any pics or how they did theirs.

Here is what my dash looks like now.

I am wanting to smooth/finish things off and either ditch the wood grain in favor of something else, or redo the wood grain on the dash and in either case I want to at the least get the cd spot below the screen to be the same finish as the rest of the dash instead of trying to mimic the side panels.

Trouble I seem to have is I can't quite wrap my head around just simply mounting it and plastering the area with some filler and sanding it all smooth. If thats how it gets done then I guess I will get it done, but between the front face plate for the drive being extremely thin and then the gaps around the external enclosure its in I am just not 100% sure what is the best way to get the outlook I want.

**djvillar** · 10-01-2010, 12:44 AM

Do a search for wood grain finishes. There's a company that you can sent parts to and they wrap it with a wood grain vinyl to match your OEM look. So what you would do is basically what you already said, slap it in there, bond it, fill the gaps, and get the surface perfect as if ready for paint. Send it to the company and have them wrap it. It'll be one piece and look as if OEM.

**jdc753** · 10-01-2010, 07:11 AM

thanks for the tip. I think I have seen some of those water transfer places like Phoenix Imaging http://www.phoenix-image.com/HydroGraphics.htm

I guess I'll give it a try and with some thin coats of filler on there and just hope they don't crack. Seems the drive would then become permanent to the dash then if the enclosure remained attached with it. I might be able to get just the face plate for the drive to work, just seems pretty flimsy and the top piece is only maybe 1/16th of an inch thick.

**djvillar** · 10-01-2010, 08:27 AM

The monitor face, and the slot load face,.. attach them with CA glue (from a hobby shop) or if they are similar plastic you can use the plastic weld method. when you fill the gaps, use sem bumper repair, there's a harder version and a more flexible version... less likely to crack.

**LittleDragon** · 10-01-2010, 06:10 PM

3m Di-Noc comes in wood grain but if you want a seemless finish, you gotta wrap your entire dash.

**jdc753** · 10-01-2010, 06:35 PM

yea I'm pretty sure either way I am going to refinish everything. Either just get this panel redone with matching wood grain and leave the rest of the interior alone. Or come up with some sort of a theme to replace the wood grain that will go with the rest of the truck both inside and out.

But before I get to that step I have to figure out how, and accomplish getting the slot load portion all flushed in and everything else that will get smoothed/flushed into the dash completed and prepped for possible getting a water transfer graphic applied. It seems they can mask off portions to not get the transfer but I can't seem to find a definitive answer on that either.

**zillacles** · 10-01-2010, 11:21 PM

Originally Posted by djvillar

Do a search for wood grain finishes. There's a company that you can sent parts to and they wrap it with a wood grain vinyl to match your OEM look. So what you would do is basically what you already said, slap it in there, bond it, fill the gaps, and get the surface perfect as if ready for paint. Send it to the company and have them wrap it. It'll be one piece and look as if OEM.

That's pretty much what I did for mine. Sorry couldn't find any better/clearer pictures:

**PhilG** · 10-03-2010, 08:27 AM

I like the look of the above pic with just the slot exposed. I have to flush mine into my console soon and I will have to figure out how to do it.

One thing though, I really don't like the idea of fixing the drive permanently to an interior piece in the vehicle. To me that is just a loud request asking for the drive to die soon.

I am going to try to figure away to make brackets that will hold the drive where i want it behind the panel but still be able to remove it. There should also be no issues with it cracking then either.

So I don't have an answer but just a little change in direction for you to consider.

**jdc753** · 10-04-2010, 02:42 PM

thanks Zillacles, I get the idea with yours. I'm thinking I might lean that way, specially with what Phil brings up with perminantly mounting the drive.

I'm seriously considering sending out the dash and other panels to be refinished with some water transfer graphics, either to stock wood grain, or something a bit different, but not wild. To do this though I am pretty much 99% sure that I can't have the drive attached, and I can't quite figure a way to have only the faceplate attached and trust the drive to clip back onto it. Thinking I will thin out the area to get the drive as close to the surface as possible to the outside face, but not actually perminantly mounted to the dash itself, just enough to be able to load/unload discs through the dash into the drive.

**PhilG** · 10-09-2010, 07:17 AM

You know, I have only had my pc in my truck since June, But I have travelled probably 15,000km since then (about 12K miles) and I have probably only used the drive 3 or 4 times. I may consider just installing mine in the glove box if I can't do a good job of flushing it into the console I am working on. The SD's have very large glove boxes.
Just a thought you might want to consider.