ur going to have to relocate you rear defroster controls which i can tell u is a pain in the *** cuz i did it in my girls car but it came out rather nice
It looks good so far hope to see the finished product soon.
Hey every I have been reading these forums for a while but FINALLY decided to sign up and post my current project. I have a black 4 door 2000 Honda Civic. I am installing a car pc in it and am currently in the process of intigrating the 7" lilliput LCD into the dash so that it looks factory.
Here is the dash as it looks pre-modded
and here is the mock up of what it might look like when I am done
I plan on cutting the 2 pieces to fit into eachother then using apoxy to join them together. After that Bondo will be used to remake the curves of the dash so that the curved dash and the strait lcd fit nicely together.
I have been taking lots of pics of the process along the way I just have to get them on my website so I can post them here
Check out my web site for the full pc project log.
ur going to have to relocate you rear defroster controls which i can tell u is a pain in the *** cuz i did it in my girls car but it came out rather nice
It looks good so far hope to see the finished product soon.
There are quite a few Civic install around here, so you should have plenty of inspiration.![]()
The first thing I did was to remove the black plastic dash piece from the dash, this required removing a ton of other dash pieces but I finally got it off. Now my car looks like someone stole my stereo lol.
After some test fitting I realized that the LCD and dash wernt going to fit nicely together.
So the next thing I did was cut the crap out of the dash untill the screen fit
Once it fit I used 5min Apoxy to secure the 2 pieces together and checked and rechecked as it was drying to make sure that the pieces were strait and level.
After the glue had really hardened overnight I realized that the buttons on the lilliput curve upward... and since I hacked the LCD allready to auto power on I figured I did not need any of the controls. I may add a power and source button later or I may just cut a hole for the IR sensor.
I had no choice but to dremmel the crap out of the front of the lcd.
After I did that I realized I had huge gaps that I had to turn into one smooth curve and it was never going to work. Luckly when I opened the bondo I found pieces of wire mesh that I could use to fill the gaps. I used some hot glue to secure them.
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After I got the wire mesh on the dash was ready for some bondo. I fought with the bondo sanding and adding layer after layer untill I created a new bottom curve and got it to meet up nicely with the top curve. It took a hell of a lot of sanding to create a nice even curve.
I will spare you all the repetave bondo pictures and skip to where I have the bondo spotting putty applyed and test fitting everything to make sure it all still fits together
Here is the front... you can see just below the front of where the lcd is tiny plastic pieces poking through the bondo and a little bit of wire mesh. The bondo sands much easier than either of them so they would end up as high spots when I sanded. The only solution was to grind the crap out of them creating a trench to fill up with bondo and sand smooth.
Also the entire right side had to have a huge layer of bondo on it to reset the curve from the top right to the bottom right so that where the bondo meets the plastic is not visiable.
this picture shows the back with the back of the lcd screwed in and the metal mounting brackets in place. This is a good thing because I can still bolt the screen to my dash and its now virtually impossiable to steal.
Now that the surface is near perfectly smooth I just have to laydown a bunch of primer and flat black paint. I dont plan on using any protective coat because it will make the paint glossy and I want it to look like flat black plastic as it was before.
Any comments or ideas on the buttons or where I should relocate the 4 button ac unit I removed from the bottom of the dash?
Looks pretty good.I hope that mesh will be strong enough though...
Why don't you relocate the screen buttons, and put the climate buttons a little lower than they were?
I would but there is just no room. If I put the buttons anywhere near where they were I will have to cut up the back of the lcd lid as well thus potentially exposing the insides. as of now when I put it all back together the lcd will still be sealed in the dash. it will also be really hard to cut a perfect hole for the buttons to paint and sand again and figue out a way to attach it to the inside.Originally Posted by Cris
The mesh should be plenty strong enough to hold everything together. I did lots of thin layers of bondo so It should all hold together well. I plan on mounting an extra USB port near the e break instead of in the dash. I just need to figure out a place to mount the slim DVD drive. I was going to put it under the lcd but there is a chunk of metal it would hit inside the dash even though it would fit nicely in the front.(
Have any more good ideas?
In the first pic, where the phone chager is looks like a good spot (dpending on what's behind it though) for an optical drive. Thos buttons would look good in there too. Or maybe near the shifter...![]()
I have a snow day today woohoo! hopefully I will get some painting done. I am taking my car to get the oil changed etc for my spring break trip to Virginia Beach! I am hoping that I can get the dash finished by then... I was hoping to get the pc installed but I dont know that its going to happen before saturday.
I found a great deal on e bay on a external cd drive case for only 15$ where as everyone else was selling them for like $80!! so I will have to pick up one of those.
Right now I am also working on a custom wireing harness to connect the screen to the computer as well as the usb hub and accesories. TIme for some more painting!
Dual Core Atom - 512MB - 60GB SSD - 2010 Lilliput - SiRF Star III - BT - Wi-Fi - Street Deck - Rear Camera - Full Audio System
Project Log
|----------| Software
|----------| Hardware
|----------| Fabrication
|----------| Installation
Well I am back from spring break and workin on my car again. I have lots more of the dash done. As soon as I get home from school I can upload new pics!
Dual Core Atom - 512MB - 60GB SSD - 2010 Lilliput - SiRF Star III - BT - Wi-Fi - Street Deck - Rear Camera - Full Audio System
Project Log
|----------| Software
|----------| Hardware
|----------| Fabrication
|----------| Installation
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