When I started out I had a Kenwood PS907 flush mounted into the dash. Diamond components in home made kick panels, and a pair of Oz 300L 12" subs. I've got a Kicker ZR240 for the highs and a ZR600 for the subs. This was all done back in the summer of 2003.

Since I wrote this back as I did the install, everything from here out will be in the present tense, but this is already done, so you don't have to sit and wait for the outcome. Different segments will be separated with a dashed line. Anyway...

This page (page 2) will highlight the beginning stages of my LCD install.
What's going in is a JVC SH909 deck, JVC KVDV7 dvd player, Nesa 7" 16:9 LCD screen, one pair of Audiosource EQTs, new kick panels, and a single 12" Brahma instead of the pair of Oz subs.

The install plan:

The deck will sit in the stock location. The DVD player is going where the center heater vents are in the dash. The monitor is going above the heater controls, in an enclosure that'll look like it was stock.

The eq's are going into the back seat.

I haven't figured out what I'm doing with the sub & amps yet.

So anyway, on to the picture. I spent all day today (~6 hours) on this single piece. This is going to be the housing for the LCD monitor. It's going to go right above the heater controls. I started with a spare console, and cut it down to what you see here.

So far I've cut the divider bar out of the trim plate, and trimmed the back so that it's all even. I trimmed the bottom down so that it mates to the top of the stock console. Unfortunately, I ran into an unexpected snag. Believe it or not, the console and the trim plate are tapered slightly. The trim ring is approximately 3/16" narrower at the top than the bottom. Because of that, my top plate is wider than the bottom one where they meet. I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to handle it, but considering what GM quality control looks like, I don't think this is going to prevent it from looking stock. :D

My next step is going to be shortening the piece. I need to shorten it approximately one inch. My dilemma is how I want to cut it. Because of the texture on the front of the piece, any kind of attempt to cut it and smooth it back together will be ovbious. I think I'm going to keep the splice as high up as I can, because that'll be the least noticable area.

Once it's done, it'll conform to the shape of the dash behind it, and will be cut to fit around the cig lighter/defroster pod.

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Here's another update (no pic though).

I spent another 3 hours on the trim plate tonight. I sat there for a while trying to figure out how to cut it down and have it still look right. Finally I decided on a technique that minimizes the amount of piecing within the textured area. I'll snap a pic tomorrow and upload it. I still don't know if it's going to work or not, but I guess there's only one way to find out.

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Another update, this time with pics.

This pic shows the cut-down plate in the two pieces. In order to minimize the viewable cut, I cut at the seam in the corner, vertical up through the texture, then horizontal along the edge. Doing it this way allowed me to have minimal modification to the textured area.

Here it is glued together:

The left side came out almost perfect. The right side isn't so perfect, and I haven't figured out what I want to do about it yet. The pieces you see sticking up are extra pieces that I glued to the back so I could line up the top piece better. Right after I took this last pic, I dropped it, so I'll be reglueing the left side again tomorrow.

I also need to glue together some scrap and see if there's a way for me to make some texture from scratch, because the right side is off enough that I need to sand the surface.

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I reglued the top piece, then made some filler pieces to fill the gap where the center bar was cut out. After I sand it more, I'm going to have to use a little filler to smooth it perfectly.

I trimmed the center part so that it sits even and took a pic of it as it sits now:

I put the monitor into the cradle that comes with it, and set it behind the trim plate. This is how it's going to sit when it's finished:

I like this pic. It gives me a good idea of what the finished product will look like, and I'm pretty happy so far.

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here's a picture of the trim ring in the newly shortened housing:

I made a cardboard template of the trim plate and started hacking on it until it fit around the cig lighter pod.

If you set it over the trim plate, you see that a LOT of the trim plate has to be cut:

This is almost too much to cut. It goes right to the edge of the front plate. I already glued another piece on the housing so that I can cut most of it away and still have strength. Before I cut anything I'm going to examine my spare dash board to see what the backside of the cig housing looks like. It might look better if I cut the dash instead of the tv pod.

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Here's some more pics of the progress. I sat there for an hour on saturday trying to decide whether I wanted to cut the trim plate or the cig lighter pod. Finally I decided to cut the trim plate because I couldn't think of a good way to attach everything if I cut the lighter pod. Before I changed my mind I hacked the trim plate:

Before I can cut the mounting panel behind the trim plate, I need to stiffen it up. I glued some side panels into place that will serve to be supports for the pieces that connect the monitor housing to the mounting panel.

I positioned the monitor housing to the trim plate and hot glued it temporarily. I re-attached it to the mounting panel, then hot glued some pieces into place to hold the monitor housing to the mounting panel. That's this pic:

After that, I cut & bent some abs pieces that were glued into place to permanently mount the monitor housing to the mounting panel. After it all dried I put the trim panel on and things didn't line up right, so I ripped it all out and started over tonight. So far I'm happy with the fit, but I had to take a few intermediate steps, so it won't be finished until tomorrow. Once that portion is finished, then I'll have a piece that's rigid enough to handle being cut to form to the cig lighter pod, and I'll be able to start cutting the main dash for clearance, and putting the side panel onto the mounting panel so that it conforms to the dash properly.

Here's a pic of the trim plate just sitting in place without the mounting panel behind it:

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another update from the weekend.

I wanted to permanently attach the monitor case to the frame. I put the trim plate into place, got the monitor case where I wanted it, and hot glued them together. This kept the frame in place so that I could hot glue 3 pieces to attach the monitor case to the frame. Here it is attached in this pic:

Once positioned where I wanted, I used plastic epoxy to attach some larger pieces to keep it all together, and I trimmed down the final piece to fit where necessary:

Here it is with the trim plate in place:

I also decided to take a break and install my new JVC deck. Check page 3 for that. :)

Page 1 - Exterior
Page 2 - LCD Installation
Page 3 - Head Unit Installation
Page 4 - DVD Installation
Page 5 - Finishing of LCD & DVD Installation
Page 6 - "Before" pictures from the day the car was purchased