Custom Aluminum Center Console

My roommates and I got to work to build a custom center console from scratch using sheet aluminum.

Basically what I wanted was something that would allow me to mount a slave cd player, along with three standard 2 1/16" gauges, 6 toggle switches, and a keyed battery disconnect switch.

Finally I settled on a design, and made a basic version of it in sheet metal.

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The design ended up being larger in practice than on paper, but it was to extend from the bottom of the dash to the floor right before the front seat. It was to have a front in two sections which could be unscrewed and taken off to service the electrical wiring.

Finally I only cut out the middle gauge area because I need to buy two more gauges yet to fill the console. I plan to get a trans temp gauge (digital) and a fuel pressure gauge (digital) for the left & right sides respectfully. I plan to also replace the center intake air temp gauge with one with green led displays (as will be the two new gauges) since all green displays matches the factory Mopar electronics (radio, cd player, digital overhead console, digital cluster- you get the picture).

After some refining, polishing, I ended up with this:

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I had to cut out part of the dash to get it to fit flawlessly but it was not that bad of an install. I had tabs in the design to bolt it to the floorboards as well.

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I like it alot, although if I were doing it over I would try to make it smaller.

After having this setup for about a year, I have decided to make a whole new front for it because I no longer use the stock audio equipment and after finding my airbags had holes in them, decided to throw away all the air suspension stuff (its crap, I don't see why people put up with it- a pair of decent bags should last more than 3 years).

I am not sure yet what the new front will look like, as I have a lot more room to work with. I will probably try to work some cup holders into the design, since I use my car mostly for road trips and my 1988 model year leather seats don't have the cupholders in the armrests like the 1990 & newer years had.