Custom Aluminum Overhead Console (Pics inside)

The purpose of the overhead console is 3 things:
- House a character display (which will be used for displaying track titles, the temperature, etc)
- Hold my glasses (I only need them when I drive..so when I leave my truck, I leave em on the arm rest..and they keep getting knocked over)
- Power switches and LEDs (for the computer, inverter, and monitor)

Now, onto the pictures

First, I had to drop the headliner to take a mold of it. I need to get the shape of the headliner, and the easiest way that I know of is with fiberglass.



The wire hanging down in the 2nd picture goes from the computer (for power, reset, HDD LED, etc) to what will be the OHC.
Also, if you look closely in the 2nd picture, you can see the aluminum bezel I made (by hand) for the H/U and DVD drive. I'll eventually post more pictures of that in my progress thread (link in sig)

Here's the mold

And the 3rd and 4th pics are of the roof of the truck. I took pictures so I have an idea of what the mounting bracket for the OHC will look like.

Heres the beginning stages of the console. I'm positioning everything and clamping it up to be welded.

I had the sides cut (with the top shaped to the curve of the headliner) and all the bends are done. I also made the bottom piece for it.

The 2 small pieces going across the front and back were just to keep the width while making the bottom piece. They get cut off later.

Here it is with the inside welded, and the excess metal cut.

look alright sofar

Here it is with the top welded, and grinded.

Problem #1: The lip I was going to put the character display on had to be cut shorter because it was blocking my rear view mirror. After doing alittle bit of searching on google, I found that almost none of the character displays I looked on would have fit in that lip. So, unfortunatly, there was no sense in leaving it. Which explains the cut across it.

I got too caught up in working and stopped taking pictures for a bit. I did a couple things here:

- I cut the front, welded it, and grinded it. Then added the back piece.

- I then started on the cutout for where the glasses holder will go.

Right now, I already have the glasses holder complete. I'm just working around the problems that I've run into, and still coming up with a way to hing the holder to the OHC.

I might update the pictures tomorrow, but I won't be working on it much until monday.

I'm just a bit disappointed that I won't be able to add the character display. But at least if I find one small enough, it really won't be that much work to weld up a new house for the display, and weld it to the OHC.

looks great, i gotta learn how to weld!

how small of a character display do you need? did you check out matrix orbital?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scott_fx

looks great, i gotta learn how to weld!

how small of a character display do you need? did you check out matrix orbital?

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Thanks. I just HATE working with fiberglass, so for me..welding/metal fabrication is the way to go.

I think that's one of the sites I looked at. That lip (before it was cut) was around 1/2 inch. I found displays that had the viewable area 1/2 inch, but the overall size of the unit (heigh wise) was just too big.

I was originally hoping to put a 2x20 in, but now, I'm thinking that maybe I might be able to squeeze in a 1x16 in a different location then it was before (out of the way of the rear view mirror)