Thread: 99' Hilux.. Carputer integration, usb in dash, liliput also.

Ryann here,

So this is something ive been planning on for some time now, well years, this damn car seems to take a million years to finish but im at the stage im doing some fab on the dash.. and id like to get your opinions... i have alot of pictures and ill try and describe what im acheiving in each step.. im doing this because i learn alot.. not if Everything from internet forums and good construction builds, from metalwork to wood work.. so giving people descent pictures and a descriptive build helps people tenfold..

anyways heres were im at..

You will see in the following pictures, this model car has an upper glove box and lower... turns out i dont like the top one.. so im getting rid of it.. in these pics im chamfering off the hard edge so i can get a good bond with the epoxy. and roughing up all the plastic











in these next few im used some peice of steel and plastic to screw thru and keep the fill in piece flush. for less finishing work, and it actually had a lil twist in it that prevented it sitting right.





A picture of the epoxy now on the rear side. i also filled the old handle hole full of the epoxy.



this picture just shows the dash, u can see a sanded line section, these were two pieces and i have glued them together and will smooth into one piece.. this in turn makes it harder to install but will look better



next few shows the two piece bond again.. and also is showing me roughing up the bevel for were the liiliput will be, its very haggard and rough and i wanted to start with true clean edges and straight edged before i bonded the bezel in, for a few reasons.. one, it would nearly be impossible to get a perfect edge in there once i fill it full of bondo etc. so starting with true edges will save me time later on.







in the next few u see me following that process... epoxying it up. and smoothing it out. and u can see under the vents is pretty bad too so i smoothed that out too.













here i used a different epoxy to sit in place just enough to hold it.. so i could plaster it with better stuff behind and in front.



Here i wanted to preserve the bevel in the bezel so by taping it off, im able to save that and hopefully keep it looking really clean in the end.











Here ive sanded smoothed and used a coat of fill for the moment.







onto some usb ports... theres an unused section here that if u scroll up you can see, it was basically just a hazard light hole and a clock hole.. both of which dont need to be there. so ive made into 2 usb ports.. ive used a house connection plate, cut, fit and epoxyd it in..







here you can see the two peices are now completely joined and smoothed also.



under the screen im running a clarion touch deck.. so instead of running a sound board im going to run the AUX out of PC across to the deck. and then deck to amp and speakers. heres were im at on that. ive cut and moulded a peice of sheetmetal which im bonding in.. which i then will cut a hole for the deck..







heres a picture i just stole from a sales site of what the dash usually looks like. just judging from that pic, its cleaned it up ALOT. i havent looked at it till now.. and theres a pic of the actual car too.






Its friday night here and i plan on doing alot over the weekend so i quickly finished up most of that section for the deck, ill get it cut in tomorrow, heres a pic.



And thats were im at right now guys, tell me what you guys think. appreciate the comments.