With the missus working over the long weekend I've had a chance to revert to one of my favourite past times

I was quite fond of my DVD setup prior to those theiving c#%ts stealing it all about a year ago so I decided to have another crack at it - though through necessity on slightly more of a budget this time.

I've had my eye on portable DVD players for a while with the intention of hacking one up and flush mounting it in my dash for a kinda factory look. Amusing I know, that I should now start to go with a factory look. haha

A limiting factor was it had to also have A/V in so I could hook other devices up to it, something that many portable DVD players don't have. I bought a 7" unit from kmart the other week when they were on sale but found the viewing angle was s**t, you had to look almost straight down into the thing for a semi decent picture. So I took it back in favour of one I saw on sale at stratties. Much better viewing angle and $20 cheaper.

So after busting it open I was greeted with the somewhat time consuming task of extending all the wires that run the LCD - the guts of the unit will be in the glovebox with just the screen in the dash.

This is it with most of the wiring removed for haxoring



Just the screen part I need - the small circuit board and the bottom and inverter on the side will be moved to the back of the screen to minimise the vertical space it takes up in the dash. I'll keep some of the plastic surround and dremel the rest to suit



And all the wiring extension done - 24 wires in total, and alot of pissing around . I used cat5 because I had it spare and it seems to do the job.



On to test fitting it in the car

This is where it'll sit in the dash, has to go under the headunit because there isn't enough depth to mount the headunit and the bottom below it. The space the screen takes up will do away with the existing cig lighter socket and ash tray but that's no drama. I'll put a cig lighter socket for running 12v accessories in the glovebox, although most of the stuff I'll use is already hardwired (inverter, power for the dvd player, battery chargers etc)



As for what the A/V will be used for - cameras - one in the back as a reversing cam (not that I need it but I'm told girls will think you have a bigger penis if you have one ) and one mounted in the front - for recording shenanigans at trackdays etc and pure gimmick factor.
This pic is pretty grubby because of the camera pointing into the sun and also the bubbled screen protector still on)



A better shot of a possible camera location (on the rear wheel arch). Note with the recent rain the car is dirtier than paris hilton.



Next step, on with cutting up the existing radio surround and neatly mounting the screen in there.

Thats all for now, if you've read all this you are probably having a slow long weekend too

looking good so far mate! Should be all worth it once u finish

good start man, i love the idea!

good on u hyena. looking good and cant wait to see the end result =D

phong =P~

digital tv tuner is a must !!! hehehe

Yeah I'm gonna try my set top box in it when I get it all sorted


I've been cutting and grinding alot away but that now brings me to the small problem of fixing it there. I need to retain the 2 mounting holes shown here in pink which is going to be very hard with the curved shape of the bottom of the console



Now how to fill in the gaps around the edge and smooth it out...

Anyone know anything about plastic bog and where you can get it ? I don't think I've ever seen it around but I've heard of it so I'm pretty sure it exists... haha
I'd use normal bog but it might flex and crack being such a thin area.

This is it test fitted to the car and cut out about as much as I can



You can see the shape issue I have at the bottom. I'm not sure what to do about that and retain those screw holes. The holes aren't actually visable from the front, it's just the low angle I've taken the photo at. So... if I kinda have the screen how it is there I could get up under there with a small right angle screw driver bit to do the screws up but then the screen protrudes a little square at the bottom while the rest of the dash under it curves around, which would look a little chat and detract from the factorish look

What if you swapped the deck with the screen???

if u read his post he cant due to depth issues..


as for plastic bog no idea what about fibreglass? or a putty of some type?


other than that SWEEEET JOB!

can u get ones that run on 12v?

or just use a house opne with inverter?

i got me a tv/dvd deck now yay

I'm a bit reserved about using FG because of how hard it sets. I don't want to scratch the plastics on both sides of the join when sanding it back.
I might just try liquid nails to hold it all together and just have a thin layer of bog on the top to smooth out the join.

Regie I already have an inverter so that's no drama but yeah you can get 12v tuners.

That is going to look awesome, I was thinking about doing a similar thing when I had my fairmont but have it moulded into the top left of the dash ( i bought a spare dash for it)

up where the trip computer and air vents are ?
I thought about that but the size screen I want would look a bit big there, plus I think someone else did it there with a 5" screen or so and it looked a bit funny because of the shape of that bit.

I too have a 2nd dash to play with. If I could get around the mounting issue I'd mold it all into the one big thing and have alot more freedom but meh, I'll make do

Last edited by Hyena on Mon Jun 12, 2006 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah that was it, I have a mate who reckons he could make it look good with fibre glass but I couldnt find a small enough screen, I bought a 7" but would have looked a bit ridiculous, then just gave up on it all and bought a new car.

Anyone want to buy an EL futura dash? lol

For anyone else who's interested, this looks like the sort of plastic bog I was looking for.

http://www.parasolinc.com/Products.asp? ... =ALSIPLAST

Now to try and find some! (or similar)

WOW that is gonna kick but when you are done!