Thread: 1990 Lexus LS400 (JDM Toyota Celsior)

Stage 1 - Building the display surround.

The LCD came with what was called a 'headreast mounting kit' This is just a black plastic bezel that the LCD clipped in to.

I had previously purchased a double-din surround kit to use with a standard single din head unit in the car, so i figured combining the two would be a good idea...

I spit the double din kit in half and glued the sides to the LCD bezel. I then fiberglassed the ash tray to the bottom, after modifying it to fit around the LCD bezel.

Just so you have an idea, here is the stock interior of a LS400



and here is my display area taking shape;




I thought it was finished and ready for paint, however after painting, I noticed some blemishes and low parts. so I re-bogged them



Tonight I will sand the sections back and re-paint it.

Stage Two - The PC Enclosure.

I plan to house the PC inside of the factory CD changer housing. The CD changer that came with the car would only work with the stock head unit, and mine never even worked with that anyway.

Here is an example of how it sits, its the black box on the right hand side of the trunk


So I removed it yesterday to see if it would fit a mini itx board inside... Thankfully it does, with about 15mm on either side, and maybe 150mm front and back, plenty of room for a PSU and Hard disk, as well as any usb devices I wish to hide in there.

Here is a picture of the gutted case

Really nice car and should be fun to work on, looking forward to seeing how your build progresses. Nice spot for that PC as well, have you planned for any venting of heat from the boot on stinking hot days or possibly getting some cabin air via a small intake to the PC? Always worth thinking about in the early stages before its set in stone.

Good point. I will throw an 80mm fan in the side of the CD changer case. The boot itself has part of the rear airconditioning system in it, so I could duct in to that, or there is a 'air intake' underneath the cd changer box that I could also tap in to.

Tonight I finished sanding back the bog ready for paint again. Will post pics later

I finished off the centre console.


You can see it here in action (with my temporary laptop connected in the boot)


The boot still isnt complete, as you can see there is a lot of cleaning up and wiring to be done;

turns out my picopsu had died after sitting in the bottom of a box of crap. so I bought a M2-ATX.

Going to fit it to my case tonight and see how it goes.