Jerry Feather

P.S. The rear wall is actually waste. It is now ground away in the last stage of trimming. JF

Bill Ball

THAT LOOKS SUPERB!

Then the issue for me is how to deal with flush mounting the rest of the console pieces. Sorry if you covered that or is that something we'll have to deal with individually depending on components?

Regardless, that piece looks excellent and appears to fit perfectly.

M. Requin

Outstanding. Better than Saturday morning dime movies when I was a kid. The only thing I follow more closely is the weather. Jerry, thanks for sharing not only your work, but the thought processes behind it. Makes it much more informative.

Jerry Feather

Thanks for the positive input. Just so you don't feel like this is going to leave you hanging, I'll let you know what I have in mind for the future of this flush center console item.

There is going to become a companion piece that I will be forming next for the upper area of the console. I expect that it will form much the same as this piece but in a much less complicated manner. I should be able to make that machine in a much shorter time than the five or so weeks this one has taken me. It is going to be similar in that it too will just snap into place in the console just above and flush with this one. It will not be formed with openings, but will have to be cut out for the original components and for a double DIN Navigation/DVD/etc. unit of you own choosing. For myself I am going to design around the Pioneer units like have been put in before in the other flush conversions that have been done and reported here. That panel will also be designed to be covered with leather which can be black or any color desired.

When I have actually finished with this present trim item I am going to end this thread and start another one about the further development of the flush center console conversion system. In that one I don't anticipate going through the machine-building process in very much detail, but rather hope to dwell more on the development and perhaps installation of the whole flush console conversion. I will probably start that thread in a couple of weeks.

I'm going on vacation for a few days later this week, so there will be a break in my reports for that amount of time in any case. When I get back will be a good time to finish up here and then start on the next thread.

I hope that helps.

Jerry Feather

M. Requin

Have a GREAT vacation!!

Jerry Feather

Thanks Martin. That, and what you have said before mean and lot. Jerry

Jerry Feather

Here, I thought you might like to see this fresh trim piece with the clock recess cut out and a clock put in place. This is just tentative, but gives you an idea of how the Infiniti Clock will look in this new panel. This is the later of the clocks that I am designing around. What do you think?

It actually looks a whole lot better than the pictures because there is just too much reflection off of the pebble finish of the plastic. Give it a look anyway and see what you think.

Jerry Feather

Ducman82

thats a great job! do you have to be careful taking out all the bolts? or can u use an electric drill or impact to take them out to make it faster?

Jerry Feather

Good question, Ducman82. I have developed similar processes for cold forming aluminum and stainless steel and that tooling is made of steel. With those I do use a butterfly air powered impact driver to install and remove the hold-down bolts. However, since this machine is all aluminum and since an impact driver is rather harsh, I have to do the installation and removal of the bolts by hand. I am afraid that the threads in the aluminum would not last very long if frequestly subjected to any kind of power tool.

Jerry

Landseer

Jerry, working on these Porsche engines, I'm using a 1/4 inch drive air IR air ratchet on fairly low pressure. . Low speed, low torque but good when there are a bunch of bolts, like waterpump.

Benton

It looks great, Jerry. That clock looks much better than I thought it would--the size is much nicer than I thought. For some reason I was thinking it was going to be much larger.

Bravo!

Jerry Feather

Sometimes the things that I do are less than brilliant. In fact, on reflection, my decisions are sometimes downright stupid. This might be one of them. As I wrote the last post I began thinking that there is a lot of adjustment in some of these tools, and even just in the removal there should be little concern about the torque. I have air and electricity readily available and I have plenty of tools I could put into service at least to remove the bolts. I think my only real concern is in driving a bolt in that has been started with the threads crossed; but that could be done by hand and then drive them all with a driver, and then remove them all with the driver.

I guess I had better look into this suggestion as a possible time saver. Actually, every time is do the bolts I have this little thought in the back of my mind about why I am not using some kind of power to get it done quicker. I think I have been dismissing it because of the experience with the bolts in the steel forms where I tend to watch and worry even there about the thread errosion.

Thank you both for putting this idea "up front." I'll look into it further.

Jerry

Jerry Feather

Hi Mark. I guess that perspective is frequently a problem in doing the pictures and telling about this in these posts. As I think back, too, I don't think I have posted any pictures of this later model Infiniti Clock. The one shown here and which this tooling is designed for is actually a much better choice for this project because in the back it is very compact and will need no modification as with the earlier Infiniti Clock I showed which I will have to cut off and try to reassemble in order for it to be usable in this project. I wasn't going to mind doing that for my own uses, but trying to do that for any others was or is going to be a problem.

One thing that is apparent to me now is that I am forming the clock recess too deeply. I think that the thickness of the material is adding to the depth of the clock location, so now I am going to go the other way with the formed depth. The thing that I will loose, however, is most of what little definition I have with that recess now. I am afraid that most of it will go away. I'll give it a try and see which looks better.

Jerry

Jerry Feather

Here is a side-by-side of the two different Infiniti Clocks. The one on the left is the first one I started working with. It comes from cars from about 2001 to 2004. The one on the right is from 2005 to 2007. The later ones are more expensive, but much more compact, as you can see.

Jerry

Frank Castle

I will probably getted banned for asking this after all the hard work that you have put into this project, but I'm wondering why the clock now that you have revealed that you intend to make an upper piece that will accept any double Din component? Your Pioneer in dash unit will be able to display time and date. I would send you a check right now if the panel was just an ashtray delete panel working in conjunction with the other piece you intend to fabricate. I would love to put an A/F gauge and power port for phone/radar detector in the area you have occupied by the clock.Nice work by the way. I am anxious to see the other piece and the combined layout once everything is complete.