Thread: Scion xB '06, in-dash Atom 330, Lilliput 889GL; details, pictures, links. Index: pg 1

Fcastle, I think an 8" or even 9" screen would be directly workable with some modification to the stock bezel. The 10.4", however, is just too big in both directions. It looks like I'll have to completely rebuild the bezel. I've sliced the spare into the outer sections and the inner sections. It looks like I can whizwheel the duct portions of the bezel out, and begin to modify from there.

fixerofallthing, I'd seen your setup while cruising MP3Car. I like the built-in appearance, and now I notice one thing I missed before: I like the way you brought the screen buttons into the bezel. That's a nice touch, and an idea I may use.

Phatsacks, thanks for the encouragement. I hope to use the plastic welding technique discussed by turbocad6 in his posts. "Stellar" is a pretty high bar to reach on the first try, but I'll give it a shot.

Bezel Fabrication:
No matter how I work it, my 10.4" screen is just too big for the original bezel. To keep the original case on the monitor, I need a bezel 2" or more deeper and at least 1/2" wider at the top; it can be the same as the original at the bottom. I want it to attach it the same way as the original, and I want it to look as close to stock as possible. The original already tapers, so more taper shouldn't look out of place. I don't want to modify the actual structure of the dash any more than necessary, but the bezel is just cosmetic. You can see the stock dash earlier in the thread.

To get the project moving, I bought a spare bezel on eBay. I've cut that bezel apart, slicing the center section away, and leaving the two outer pieces to work with. Here's the OEM bezel alone, a side view of one part to clearly show the curvature, and an inside view that shows the mounting points where it snaps into the dash:

Click images to enlarge.

I'm not sure what material these are. If I could find more of it, I'd use turbocad6's technique and simply heat-weld new pieces in place. Because I don't have similar material, I'll try using a semi-rigid epoxy, Duramix 4040. I bought the 6-ounce system plus a dozen mixing tips at Finishmaster in West Palm Beach, FL.

The current plan is to split each of the side pieces, effectively separating the faces from the sides, just behind the curving transition, cutting all but the last bit at the bottom. I'll leave them still connected at that one point. I used a Sharpie pen to draw a dashed line on clear tape, and then trimmed the tape to less than 1/8" wide. I laid that on the cutting line to make it easy to see in these pictures:


The OEM silver paint will stay on to make the cut lines easy to see, but I'll use acetone to take it off once they're cut. Then I'll put the bezel sides back in the dash just as they're originally installed, and move the tops to their new locations, further apart and further out from the dash. Next, I'll make some plastic braces to keep them in the proper relationship to the sides, and adhere them in place. Once they're solid, I'll take the assemblies out of the car and add more plastic to form the revised and extended sides, with lots of fit checks and match checks along the way. I want to add enough material that I can trim and sand away the excess material and make them as smooth as stock. I'll leave the mounts as intact as possible; when the modifications are complete, I'll build extensions into the revised sides and remount them so they fit right into the dash.

I'll keep the front of the ducts absolutely stock, including the louver systems, but I'll slice off the back of the ducts where they fit into the dash, and I'll build a new middle section to connect the faces to those cut-off pieces.

Once the bezel sides are complete, I may have to relocate some controls. The monitor will be at the top of the bezel, where the head unit was located. Below the hole for the head unit, you can see two slots, and I'd like to use their space for the monitor, too. The left slot is for switches that control a/c on-off, the rear window heater, and the emergency flashers. These switches are on two separate panels and should be relatively easy to move. The right slot is for a big lever that controls recirculation of air. It appears to be an adjuster, but it's actually an on-off microswitch, so I could eliminate the big lever and use the switch alone. Since I want to install fog and running lights later, I could probably just make another three-switch panel, similar to what's on the left side, and locate the switches there. Then I could move all of these to the space below the a/c controls panel (the three circular controls in the middle of the center section) that wouldn't be moved. That would keep all the a/c controls close together, and make a logical panel layout.

Next, I need to fabricate brackets for the monitor up at the top, brackets for the DVD, which will sit below the new switch panel, and brackets for the relocated head unit, which will sit right below the DVD.

With the new mounts fabricated and all the pieces installed, I can remount the modified bezel sides and fabricate the center section of the bezel to fit everything. No matter what, when it's all done, my goal is to have OEM look and feel, OEM strength and durability, and OEM ease of access for maintenance.

I'll add pix and comments as the project progresses.

The bezel material is PE....no conventional epoxy or glue sticks to it.
There are two special purpose epoxies that do work,but,they are expensive.One is from Devcon,and it's either plastic welder 1 or 2.(I can't remember which)Another is from 3m,I beleive it's scotchweld 3000.
For my bezel,I just made a frame of abs,and used a combination of the stock screw holes,and a few holes drilled into the back of the center vents,and a few scraps of aluminum for brackets.
Your Xb is coming along very nicely,and you've done a great job fabricating that computer case and mount,I'm looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

Originally Posted by seanshine

The bezel material is PE....no conventional epoxy or glue sticks to it.

Oh, boy, that helps a lot. Now I wonder if plastic welding will work. I'll take the Duramix back and buy finishing supplies . . .

Thanks!

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Woohoo! I just went out in the garage and tried melt-welding scraps of the bezel pieces with a soldering iron. It works fine. It makes some plastic smoke using direct application of heat, but the parts bond well.

Now I'm wondering why I didn't just try the welding before heading down the epoxy road . . .

Thanks for the encouragement, seanshine, and for the redirection.

More on the Bezel:
In putting a 10.4" monitor into the xB dash, the main issue has been interference between the monitor and the existing air conditioning ducts. But there's another issue that's pretty important: I want the monitor more vertical than the standard bezel would allow. The Scion xB has a relatively tall, steep windshield, so a lot of sun comes through to the dash, and that's going to influence the readability of the monitor. In some places that would be an occasional problem, but it's a daily thing in south Florida. Angling the top of the bezel further away from the dash solves that issue, and may solve some interference between the bottom of the screen and one set of bezel mount points.

I've gone along the plan I developed and sliced one of the bezel sides, and then done a test fit. So far, the plan to make it deeper and wider at the top seems completely good and maybe even excessive: if I can widen the bezel only where the air conditioning ducts are, then the rest of it could remain stock width, and I'll only need to make the bezel deeper.

This could (1) change or eliminate some of the control placement problems, (2) reduce the amount of panel work required, (3) keep it closer to original, and (4) make it easier for others to follow this path. It would require that the bezel extend above the dash a little, but I think that can be done so it looks close to OEM.

I found some good plastic welding resources:
http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?i...8&iSubCat=1261
http://www.oceankayak.com/product_support/repair.html
http://www.urethanesupply.com/ (see the How-To section) -- thanks for this one to turbocad6

Reading these and some of the writeups on MP3Car made the tool choice easy for me: I went to my friendly local Harbor Freight store and bought a heat gun for welding plastics, plus a separate air pressure regulator so I can adjust input air pressure right in the work area instead of having to walk across the shop to the air compressor. Now it's time to practice welding scrap polyethylene so I can do a good job when I actually tackle the bezel.

While I'm practicing, I'll be keeping my eye out for a source of polyethylene that's about the same thickness as the parts I'll be welding.
High Density Polyethylene has the recycling symbol "2", and is easy to find. It's made into drainage pipe, benches, doghouses, recycling containers, floor tile, picnic tables, fencing, lumber, mailbox posts, and lots of other things, including kayaks and canoes. The pigmented material is reported to have better crack and chemical resistance than the unpigmented (clear) material. Parts about 1/8" or 3/16" thick might be pretty good to cut into narrow strips for use as welding rods. I'll be trying that.

Once I get some test welds made, I'll post pictures of the progress, maybe even showing the path along the learning curve. Then I'll tackle the bezel itself.

Shifter Mouse
I came upon a very nice mouse for the shifter. I already had the PS2 version, but ordered the USB version for the vehicle.



I got two from pctekonline (on eBay), and they came to $16 and change each, including shipping. They're also available from http://www.fentek-ind.com/fingermouse.htm for $20 plus shipping. They were available on Amazon, but, when I went to provide that link, they were "not available" there, at least right now. The reviews on Amazon were mixed, but mostly because it isn't great for use with a keyboard; you have to take the mouse off your finger to type. I've used it for testing, and I think it'll be just what I want, mounted in the vehicle.

Mine isn't installed yet. My plan is to disassemble it and build a new shifter knob around it, much like a joystick. I'll run the USB cable out the bottom along the shift lever, rather than have it hanging out of the front.

Since I have both PS2 and USB versions, I swapped the mouseballs. I now have a black fingermouse with a black mouseball. That's nice and stealthy, in keeping with my desire to attract no interest from the Bad Guys Who Break In.

For those who want to try taking this finger mouse apart, there's a single Phillips-head screw under the label on the bottom of the mouse. Take that screw out, and it snaps apart nicely for any custom work we want to do.

Plastic Welding
I've been using the air welder, practicing up to weld on the bezel. I've welded some 1/8" thick pieces of high density polyethylene (HDPE) from a discarded recycling bin I cut up. They come out welded, all right, but they start out as flat pieces and wind up warped. The result is so ugly I didn't even gather any photographic evidence. I can't imagine how badly warped the bezel would be if I tried to weld onto it.

I've learned some interesting things about hot air plastic welding:
(1) Tack welding the pieces every couple of inches is absolutely necessary.
(2) I can make my own welding rods simply by cutting long pieces of material about 1/8" wide, so I wind up with rods 1/8" square. Since they're the same material as I'm welding, they work great. They eliminate the need to buy plastic welding rods.
(3) The air welder throws a lot of heat, even at low air pressures, and I can't seem to prevent the warping that takes place. I'd have to find a way to fixture the parts in position for welding and subsequent cooling, or do very, very small areas at a time. Fixturing would be a tough stunt, since the parts have pretty radical shapes.

I finally began searching for another solution.

I had some discussions with the guys at Urethane Supply, and they suggested that hot air welding is not the best approach to welding polyethylene. After talking with them, I ordered a plastic welder specifically for polyethylene, the KC Welder Pro (KC stands for Kayak & Canoe).

Click image to enlarge.

It's an 80-watt iron -- much like a soldering iron -- that has a special tip. It comes with polyethylene welding rods in the color of my choice -- I chose black -- and some stainless steel reinforcing mesh. Total cost with shipping was about $63. This welder doesn't use compressed air, so there'll be a little more smoke, I suspect, but it should do the job with far less warping. We'll see.

Here's a video that shows an example of a similar type of iron in use, repairing a plastic wheelchair wheel:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuA6d49Z7Rc[/media]

More on Polyethylene
A good source of donor polyethylene is containers. I snagged a 1-gallon black antifreeze container from a friend's recycling bin. The walls are fairly light, but they should be fine for the extensions to the ductwork (if I can weld them without just turning them to puddles), because I'll reinforce them with ribs. I'm keeping my eye out for a discarded 5-gallon pail from Behr Paint's premium line; they're black polyethylene, too, but with much heavier walls. I could use other colors, but it would nice to have everything in black to start with.

Another note on materials for this: The guys at Urethane Supply said that Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) can be welded to High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), using LDPE welding rod (either purchased or cut from scrap). LDPE containers carry the recycling symbol "4":

They said LDPE melts at a lower temperature than HDPE. Thus, LDPE welding rod can be used to weld HDPE parts together. However, HDPE rods can't easily be used to weld LDPE parts, because the parts would melt before the welding rod.

Tuesdays are recycling days here, so I plan to eyeball the recycling bins next week looking for black polyethylene. The new plastic welding iron should be here by then. I expect to do some practicing on miscellaneous pieces, and then make some fabrication progress, finally.

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Update: I tried cutting up and using the thin-walled antifreeze container, but it doesn't have enough strength to be really functional. I think I'll be far better off to find something with a thicker wall -- like the paint pails.