Thread: Project 2003 Dodge Dakota

Looking good so far! Are you located at Scott? DoD sticker gives it away and the housing looks like Patriots Landing.

No, I live in O'fallon, but now that I look in the pictures, I realize that the houses do look very much like Patriots Landing housing. PM me if you live in the area, I'd like to see other people's projects in person and I haven't been able to make any meets posted on here yet.

i look forward to seeing how it ends up looking. i have a 02 durango myself and have racked my brain on how im going to re-arrange everything to put an LCD in the dash.

Okay, not to work too far backwards, but I figured I would post several pics that I have of the computer and console during fabrication. The computer is a VIA sp 13000 with 1 Gb stick of ram and a 250 GB Maxtor SATA drive. The slim load laptop drive is attached via an IDE cable even though in the pics I am using an IDE to USB attachement. I just didn't want to have to keep unplugging the IDE cable every time I moved the Comp around so I stuck with that simple solution.



Next I measured how much space I had available for the actual console and made a frame to attach to the body of the truck. From there I want the main console to bolt to the frame so that I can remove all of this to get to any wiring should it become necessary. I spent days looking at different ideas and this was my best solution.



Finally, when I was ready to make the actual console I got my hands on some solid MDF. I would defenitely reccomment MDF for any project like this because it holds up well and it is easy to cut.



Its relatively heavy though and you have to watch out when you drive screws into it because it will crumble somewhat when you get close to the edge of the material. Overall, I am satisfied with how this project is coming along. In a couple days I will have a shot of the console outside of the truck as I am working on it. Its just a little difficult to remember the camera at certain points during fabrication because I get so into building it and forget to record progress such as the removable bottom, the stereo cut-outs and fabrication of the fan attachments. All for now. I should have more progress in a few days so keep your eyes peeled for my continuing misadventures. Oh yeah, so far the center console project has cost me a total of $38. Not bad I don't think.

Well i got a few spare hours today and I decided that it was time to get the A/C controls measured and mounted as well as the head unit cut to proper specs for mounting as well.



I measured the rear spacing for the head unit and decided that it would look rather sweet sunk in and flush to the rest of the panel it is being attached to. I cut the openings for the wiring attachments into a second layer of MDF to provide a sturdy area for the controls to be mounted. It was realtively easy to make all the measurements and cut to thos measurements but at the last minute I realized that I had not taken into account the area that the material I am covering the console with will take up. I then had to use a dremmel to widen out the area and as a result, the console has kind of a "rough" look to it. But once foal is applied and the vinyl fabric is laid I am sure the console is gonna look great.



As you can see, my stereo is gone and the mounting bracket is being prepped to seat into the console once the wood glue has dried. I use Elmers wood glue as well as driving wood screws just like I did when I built my subwoofer box and I highly reccommend this combination. I have quite a bit of wiring to tuck in and extend down to the new location of the stereo. Thank goodness the A/C controls are already extended. I could not imagine going through those many wires again. Looks like its coming along pretty well. Next steps are to dremmel out the minute details, sand all rough edges, and prep the console for foam padding and vinyl covering. I've been drinking beer and B/S'ing with a buddy of mine through this posting so sorry if its a little misspelled and looks like the grammer of a 5 year old.

I have a 99' Dak... and I wish I was so luck to have the dash you do; minus the door panels I wouldn't be able to fit my 8"s in your doors. Just relocate the A/C controls and your set. I thought about reworking more but it wouldn't have the OE look. I'll get some pics of my progress tomorrow. I use the VoomPC case so no need to build a case and stuff.

Allright, another day to play!! Today I decided it was time rip apart my Super TM-868 monitor that I got off of ebay. Excellent touch screen monitor, very bright, and fantastically comes apart with only three screws!!



After removing the touchscreen overlay and packing everything up nice and neat, I took a good look at the monitor housing:



In order to get this into my dash where I moved my stereo and and my A/C controls, I would need to modify the dash opening to accept the custom bezel once its finished.





I decided that I would use to stereo bezel peice by cutting it in half and then gluing the bezel halves on the outside of the monitor housing. I starting off using simple super glue and then went shopping and graduated to some locktite super duper glue that comes in two tubes and must be mixed.



Well, thats all for now folks. Next step is finishing all wood fabrication for the housing of the monitor and then on to prep, primer, and finally painting!!

very cool so far. keep us posted for sure. i've been wanting to do a custom console in my car forever...

So today I tackled getting the head until mount fitted perfectly into the new console. Because there is a small piece of plasic trim located around the head unit itself, there had to be two different mounting depths to maintain the required fit for the peices to snap in. If this is at all confusing, just look at my pictures and appreciate that a bit of time went into using the file and sandpaper..............



I then fitted peices of wood into the spaces left from where the stereo head until mount for the dash was fitted onto the face of the touchscreen. I am working with a lot of little peices of wood, a little superglue, and a whole lot of patience. Next step will be to sand the newly glued peices to proper fit and then move onto bondo and then primer. Baby steps right now. But I think patience has been the key as will it be for the completion of this project.



Whelp, thats all folks.