Thread: 2003 Nissan Xterra

An angle grinder was used to cut the middle hazard light piece to fit back into the dash. It is not secured with anything yet. We cut off the tabs that secured it earlier, thinking we would put the CD-RW/DVD-ROM there. The plans changed, so now we will have to Epoxy it in too. Putty will fill in the cracks/gaps and smooth everything out later.

The cubby in the bottom was screwed back in for test fitting.

The screen was held in with Epoxy. It broke and fell out while we were messing with it. I would not recommend using Epoxy for ABS at all. To fix that, we bought this stuff at Wal-mart called "Plastic Weld." It works much, much better. Everything seems to be held in solid. You can also glob it in around the back of everything for extra support.



We bought some 3M Putty and Hardener to start making everything look flush.



We also started sanding some of it... it looks as though this will take a lot of sanding to finish.

The LEDs in the glovebox will be wired as follows:



There will be two paralell circuits. Each paralell circuit will be wired with a series of 3 LEDs. This is a total of 6 Blue LEDs. They will come on as soon as the glovebox is opened and turn off as soon as it closes. To simplify this, I bought a refrigerator switch.





If you are thinking about doing something like this... if you want the circuit to close(on) when the button is not pushed and the circuit to open(off) when the button is pushed, you want a normally-closed momentary switch.

I haven't updated this in awhile so here's what I've been doing lately:

We wired all 6 LED's... The connectors at the top left plug into the refrigerator switch.


A hole was drilled in the back of the glovebox and the refrigerator switch was put in.






We used some very strong Scotch-brand tape to stick the Plexiglass with the computer to the glovebox. I then proceeded to wire everything in there. When the glovebox opens, the lights turns on. When it closes, the lights turn off.






The case fan was screwed in with four 1 & 1/4" screws. We drilled holes for the air flow. In the top right, you can see where we drilled the holes in the glovebox and put the LEDs in.


We soldered the M-Size Barrel Plug to the Yellow(+12v) and Black(-12v) wires on the power supply. The outside is negative and the inside is positive. This will plug into the lilliput to power it.


We had to extend eight wires to go to the front to power the DVD-ROM drive and Fan Controllor. Here's the picture of one of the connectors extended:


We brought a 12V battery in the house to test everything and it works great .

We spent quite a bit of time adding more putty and sanding it off. Here's what it looks like as of now(we still have some work to do):

Well, we finished sanding it. At first we tried using Krylon Fusion Satin Black No-prep paint, but it looked horrible. It was way too shiny, so we sanded it off. We then primed it using Krylon sandable primer and sanded the whole thing down a couple times. We then painted it with Krylon Ultra-Flat black paint. After that was completely dry, we put the boxes for the fan controller and the DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive in the cubby and used the "Great Stuff" expandable foam to get them to stay. We will have a faceplate made out of wood for those. There are a few imperfections, but I can live with those. Overall, I think it looks great, especially for it being our first time doing this.







The paint seems to be VERY easy to scratch, so we are going to coat it with some sort of Matte spray protective coating.

On the RadioShark, we soldered the FM Antenna to a copper wire, which was connected to the solderless inline motorla jack from RadioShack. The FM Antenna is the one closest to the edge of the case. It is labled "FM" on the circuit board. I don't use AM Radio, so I didn't even bother with it. When we were done, we routed the wire out of the bottom where the hole was from the screw and put the RadioShark back together.





To open the RadioShark: There's a screw hidden on the bottom of the base. I used a knife to tear up the bottom part to access the screw. It's under one of the f's in the word Griffin. Then you have to unscrew and remove the base. After that, I set it flat on the counter and put the knife in the hole where the screw was and pushed upwards to start seperating the case. I then put a credit card in and started moving around it prying it apart.



I have not tested this in the car yet, but on my desk, the RadioShark used to get kind of staticy, especially if I moved it. Now, with this external antenna, the reception is crystal clear. I think it will be great when I plug it into the car's antenna.

We wired the amp up to the speakers and wired it to the battery. I wrapped the power wire in black loom tubing. The amp is located under the passenger seat.

Well, we got everything in, but we still have some work to do.

The bottom right button for the lilliput is stuck in, so the screen brightness keeps changing and the touchscreen doesn't always work as it should, especially when it's cold. We are going to have to drill that out some.

Off


Main Screen


Navi


GPS Gauges


Radio


We still need to have the faceplate for the drives fabricated. We can't decide if we want to have it be staind wood or just paint it black to match yet.