Thread: 1997 Ford Taurus LX Install, follow along kiddies...

my dash fab has not been done before, by anyone with this car. Metra's kit calls for a single din radio since the climate controls are on the panel. For the double (triple with the deck) din opening, I am relocating the HVAC.

The post from a few posts back, with the rough mock up of the layout shows that the middle piece between the stock radio area and the ashtray area will be cut. Then I am going to cut ABS sheet to that same area, (thermoformed to match contours) and secure the screen to the front piece of ABS, and the ABS will secure with custom fabbed clips. I was going to try the pre-fabbed metra kits to give it a really nice straight edge, but I'll probably end up using the original screen bezel anyways.

ah well.... You could always order a spare screen bezel from Armen, and then you can do all you fab on the spare so that you dont mess up and get left with a mess.

Got the screen in the other day, and it's amazing! At first, next to my laptop 15.4" screen it looked tiny, but then I temporary mounted it in the car, and it's definitely big enough. I got my laptop to display 800 x 480 through the on board card. I want to have this fabbed and in the car in less than one month (may have to use the inverter to get me by until I can get the PSU. I will be putting the inverter in for the PS2 anyways...)

The screen is really bright at night, I have to set the auto gamma pretty dim for it to be comfortable. In the daylight, it's as I expected, a little reflection washes some of it out, but I didn't have any problems with reading the screen. I feel like I'm calibrating it way too much though. It should be one time, and you're done. I think it's because I'm connected and disconnecting it to/from my laptop, and once the actual car pc is in it will keep the calibration settings in tact. (That freaking beep that it makes to confirm the screen calibration is so annoying, my girlfriend vowed to do terrible things to it if she ever had to hear it again...)

Also, my gps antenna seems to be a little picky. When I plug it in, usually I have to go to GPS info, then start the gps to test the signal, then close that, open iguidance outside of roadrunner, then if it acquires the signal, I open roadrunner. Sometimes if I change skins, or do certain things in road runner, it loses the GPS, and I have to close everything out, disconnect the antenna and reconnect the antenna, and start the process again. (I think though since I am disconnecting, reconnecting, etc it's causing some issues, so with the actual computer this may solve some issues.)

Anyone have any suggestions with this?

@2k1 - I didn't think armen had any bezels for dynamix screens, I thought it was more lillis and xenarcs, But I'll ask him anyway. I may be able to get any 8" wide screen bezel though and fab that. The dynamix screen doesn't mount the front to the back bezels the same way as the lillis and xenarcs, so i'll have to come up with a way to do it (really not that hard though)

I think my plan for now is to just make a mold out of thin wood, sand and filler to perfection and gravity thermoform the abs over the mold in the oven. Then cut out the appropriate holes. I'll be ordering some abs and going to buy some thin wood later this week. Fab will be a little delayed since I'm going to the projekt revolution tour concert (pit tix) but of course progress will be posted here.

i figured out the gps issue I think. Roadrunner and iguidance were trying to access the same port, and since rr opened first it caused conflict. I just have to set it up correctly and I should be good to go...

that's all that was, what's wierd though is that regardless of what I change the option to in RRconfigGPS it will only show km/h for the label code "gpsspd" I'll ask in that forum though.

Ok, bouncing a few more ideas here, I think it would be way easier to make the dash square than to get everything to line up right with the curves. I'm headed to a junkyard today to see about getting a second dash piece. What I would do is strip the vinyl from the dash piece, cut the right parts, fill the space with abs or fiberglass to make it have straight edges, then wrap it in matching vinyl. This would leave a space approx 8" x 11.5" which I would then be able to mount all the components to a piece of ABS cut to the right size. I now need to find a place that will cut my hvac control masks, so that I can fabricate the mount for that.

Also, the cupholder idea failed, so when I go to the junkyard, I'm going to see if they have the alternate cup holders for this car, or if they have a different car that has something that would work.

I'll report back later with what I find...

ok, started bezel fab, here's the first few shots:



I started with a 12" x 12" sheet of abs plastic and cut it to 8" x 12" and then measured out the bezel and cut out the right size. Then I used oatey brand abs cement (designed to glue together abs pipes) to glue the bezel in place, and then filled the front face of this for a stronger bond. I will sand this down and then put a little more in the low spots. I am using this cement because it's basically a manufactured version of our home-brew abs sludge, same stuff (MEK and ABS) but is mixed to an optimum mixture (to thin it out, add mek, thicken add abs regrind...) and comes in a sealable container. This method allows the LCD bezel to be chemically bonded as one piece to the abs sheet. (I will use this for the DVD drive and a few other small pieces.)

More shots and directions as the process progresses.

At the junkyard, I found a dash piece.



This was from a '98 but it wasn't plastic wrapped in vinyl, it was textured plastic made to look like vinyl, but has a hard touch to it.
It was a little broken, but in a spot that would be cut out anyways. I cut the space out and will fill in the empty spots with abs. The hard part with this is to keep it straight while I fab everything and to figure out how to mount it. Also, while I was there, I saw a trashed mustang that had a very similar hvac control layout as the taurus, and the connections looked pretty darn close. I think I'll head back down there, take it out, and go to one of the taurii they have and test fit it... Hope it works, because it would save me a whole lot of time and effort.

ok, more bezel work:

I sanded the first layer of abs down with a few different types of sandpaper. To make sure that it stayed straight, I wrapped the sandpaper around a pink eraser, or used a sanding sponge.





Next, I filled the low spots with more abs cement.





And, sanded again until it was nice and smooth.







Next step is to finish a few more tiny little low spots, sand those down, and then cut out the holes for the DVD drive, the pioneer deck, and to figure out what to do with the HVAC controls. After all that is done and the whole thing is smooth (no haircell texture) I'll paint it with some Krylon Fusion Texture paint. This paint is designed for plastics, so no primer is necessary, and it leaves a light texture, almost resembling sandpaper. Rather than using the thick texture paint that most here use, this is a (imo) better option.

texture paint test on a lego:



it's a more subtle texture, so I think it will work very nicely!

It will hide imperfections, but it's still good to have a smooth base to apply it to. Also after a week of curing time, it is supposed to be scratch and chipping resistant, so that's cool.