Jerry Feather

I have not been working in the shop on this project for the last few days, but I have been studying what I have produced so far just to see how close to finised we are getting. One of the things that I have noticed is that at the point that these lower trim piece joins with the upper insert, although I am forming each against a very straight form, the resulting plastic piece is having a slight curvature at the corners that is leaving a small gap between the two pieces when placed together. The gap at the corners is a little over a 16th of an inch total, but only about a half inch long. I think it is the result of the plastic simply forming thinner at the corners.

What I did was take the body of the upper insert form out and machine the mating end of it in such a way the it will form with a shape that will hopefully adjust for this gap. I also made some minor changes in the side forms and then moved the rounded end form down a little and took out its spacing washers so it will for form closer to the basic body.

I have one cooling now after cooking and will see tomorrow how much better it is.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

What I have to do next is complete the trimming jig for the air vent grill. I have made a trimming guide for it , but have to mount it in a flat surface with an opening in it that lets me put the grill in the guide and then run my router around the ends of the grill trimming them down to the narrower shape that I want for later installation in the upper insert that I am making. I am planning on doing this in order to have some reveal of plastic or leather around the grill that will not otherwise be visible with the grill in its original form.

When I get one trimmed, I'll try to mock it up in one of the formed upper inserts, maybe with some leather covering, to show what I have in mind.

Jerry Feather

Jerry Feather

I finished the guide I made for trimming the upper air vent grill. I used it on one of the spare grillis I have and find that it does just what I want. Here are some pictures.

What I want to do with the grill is trim it down a little on the ends because I am not going to use its mounting **** to hold it in since I don't think they will either line up with the vent or maybe not even reach the vent in this conversion. The other reason is that I want the upper insert to be filling the console recess rather than the grill, so I think I need to provide a little more reveal of the new insert around the grill.

The first picture is the completed trim guide.

The second is the grill in place.

Third is the router in place to do the trimming.

Fourth is the grill trimmed,

Fifth is a close-up of the end of the grill trimmed.

Jerry

Jerry Feather

Here are a couple more pictures of the grill before and after trimming just to show the comparison. The last of these pictures shows the next step in this project and that is to make a different kind of trimming guide that will be used to cut the holes in the front of the upper insert.

Here I have the upper air vent hole and the lower HVAC control holes cut, except that the air vent hole is not quite to dimension yet. I stopped here so I can decide if I want to make the last cut off the upper edge or the lower edge. I'm not sure at this point because it may depend on where the vent itself has to be placed in the upper insert. When I decide I'll finish that cut, and then I have to make a box or wood frame to mount this guide to in which I can place the upper insert in for trimming.

This trimming guide will be based on a router with a guide around the bit whereas the other trimming guide I show above is based on a router with a wheel or roller bearing on the end of the bit.

The blank space in between the two openings I have cut is where the NAV unit will rest. I will probably make a seperate guide for cutting that opening so I wont have to balance the router on too narrow of a surface for the trimming.

Jerry

Jerry Feather

I made a frame out of plywood to mount the trimming guide to and have it screwed together with the guide. Now I need to find a trim rounter with the right threaded base to mount the trim guides I bought at Harbor Freight to to use for trimming the holes needed it the upper insert.

When I am able to get some of that accomplished and I can have some of these trim pieces at least mocked up for you to see, I'll try to post an update. Otherwise I think this fabricating detail is getting kind of old.

Jerry

81Euro

Jerry, great work! Fantastic read, better than a mystery novel. Push forward with the details and pics! Jimmy.

Jerry Feather

I coundn't find the kind of router that I thought I needed. It thurns out that the router guides I bought have a screw ring to hold the guide in place and the router does not have threads. Nevertheless, all the routers have a bigger hole in the base for the bit, so I had to make a new base for one of my trim routers to accomodate the trim guide.

I got that done and set the trim jig up and tried to trim the upper and lower holes in one of the upper inserts. The first one failed with the router grabbing it and tearing it all to heck. Then I changed my method and had a little better luck with the second one. I still need to change the guide and bit from half inch to 3/8 inch which will reduce the amoung of "grab" and will help some, I think.

These pictures show less progress than I had hoped to show. I was going to try to get this insert covered with leather before I posted this progress, but I find that when the holes are cut out the insert becomes very flimsy.

In order to mount the components in the insert, upper and lower, and prepare the next hole in the middle where the NAV will go I am going to glue some fairly heavy plastic inside the insert. That is not a new twist in the design, since I have been planning it all along. I have just not been sure how heavy the extra plastic will need to be.

What I think it is going to require is 1/4 inch for mounting the vent in the upper end, 3/16 for the mid area for the NAV, and 1/8 inch for the lower part for the HVAC and AC/lock panels.

In these pictures I don't have the AC/lock panel in place because in order to mount that component I am going to have to grind the mounting tabs nearly off in order for it to fit within the insert. Then I am going to have to figure out how I am going to mount it.

Actually, aside from the plastic cited above there is also going to be some heavier plastic glued in for the mounting of the lower pieces--that plastic mentioned is just for the spacing of the face of the components.

By the way, I discovered that in cutting the air vent out of the console I cut too much of it away. The problem is that I discovered that part of the air vent is where the upper end of the console mounts to the dash. In the one I am working with the mounting holes were both broken out, so I didn't realize that. What I am going to do is design a different place to cut and then fill in that area with extra plastic when the vent is mounted in the insert. For this one, which will probably never be used in a car, I could make some new mounting points out of aluminum and glue them in, if needed.

Mike Frye

DUDE!

Actually it makes the stock HVAC controls look pretty sad. I wonder if there's a way to clean those up or refresh them.

Jerry Feather

Hi Mike. I'm sure that a tooth brush, some prep-all, and a rag will do wonders with this one. Part of the problem is the contrast with the very glossy plastic I'm using and the relative flat finish to the HVAC. When this insert is covered in leather, whatever the color, (and the thing is cleaned up) I'm sure it will look a lot better. Thanks for your input.

Jerry

Mike Frye

Gotcha. Yeah, it's just like anything else. Get a new steering wheel and the dash looks like crap. New seats and the carpets look dingy...


Thanks for doing this. I'm really looking forward to hearing about availability.

Tom in Austin

Way cool! I'm loving every update, this is just great stuff! Keep em coming!

Jerry Feather

Thanks Tom. By the way, I think someone kind of suggested that what I had to say about the color of you car might have been insulting. Actually my 11 year old daughter really does like it; and I would not be surprised to find myself in a few years painting one of my 928s for her in just that color. Jerry

Nicole

For the lack of a better word: This is "affengeil"!!!

maddox

Nicole, I'm sure you mean wicked/ horny / awesome ...as opposed to affen geil http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7XuvGDdFow

Jerry Feather

Sorry I haven't had some pictures and updates on this project the last few days. I had to take some time to make some Spare Tire Covers so I would have some money to buy another sheet of plastic for these console conversion components. I seem to be cooking several and then tearing them up a little getting the trimming jigs to work correctly.

I still don't have any worthwhile pictures because I seem to be in the middle of several things at one time with this effort. I'm just about complete with the trimming jigs for the front openings and I am calculating and cutting material to put the inside doubler material in. I am still not sure just how thick to make some of that, and wont be able to make a final determination on that until I get one or more of these covered in leather.

After I made the trim jig for the NAV opening I was a little surprised at just how little material was going to be left between the components. I think I am going to have to move the upper vent up a little and the lower HVAC components down to their extreme so that the space between then and the NAV is not so narrow and therefore flimsy.

I am also working on the design of the NAV rack and cut some material tonight for that. I think I will make a drawing of the pattern for those and then make it out of heavier plate or sheet to use as a master so I wont have to lay out the lines and holes on each one. I am going to have to make some tooling to form the racks with, so I think I will work on that next. Maybe that will lend itself to some more pictures, perhaps tomorrow.

See ya then. Jerry