I'm looking to see if anyone has done this yet.

I want to remove the lighter and the cubby hole from above the shift.

I don't use the lighter, and I don't use the cubby, so I want to replace them with a hardwired radar detector display unit (which is currently attached to the roof of the cubby), some switches, and maybe 3 new gauges or a display readout something thingy-m-jig.

But to start all this off, I'd need to find the plastic material that the dash front is made out of and fabricate a piece that would go over the top that I could then cover everything with.

Anyone done this? Anyone got any thoughts on it ?

 

That stupid rice paper texture....it looks awesome...but good luck finding it.

Maybe a junk yard and some cutting of a stock piece?

 

I'll double check when I leave work, but I don't think it's teh rice paper textured stuff.

It'll basically be a piece that goes up from the top of the boot surround up to under the ACC dials (fixing into whatever appropriate slots or holes there are in a smooth curve that follows the silvery bits on the sides.

 

Where's the Doc. he's got some experience with ABS, although I think that would be too rigid.

I had another look, and the center of the consol round the shifter is not the rice paper texture, it seems like a more generic ABS texture you get.

It looks like once cut to shape and maybe curved slightly it would be super easy to install. You coudl even make the install more rigid and reduce the transition by continueing it down passed the shift and the parking brake.

Which would then give you a lovely clean area for all sorts of switch, gauge and display fun and game.

e.g. I'd like to duplicate the sunroof switch down by the brake.

 

is it painted ?

What I mean is the plastic material around the outside of the shift boot. The boot comes down and meet a plactic wannabe metal trim and that clips into... this thing.

I would take it from just below the shift boot (there is a join) all the way up and under the AC *****, it would be indented maybe 1" under that lip, the AC ***** are in more the the wannabe metal'stic.

Not a big fan of fiberglass. I was thinking I could just find some 1/16" think plastic that I could cut into the right rectangle and then curve slightly to fit the flow.

 

Dude. If you mean the painted parts, just fiberglass it and get it painted at a shop. If you plan on getting an interior kit, carbon fiber, brushed aluminum or what have you, you can get a hold of pieces of that material much more easily than the OEM plastic.

Other than that, as mentioned above, junkyard...

 

Wow, I could have swarn I was talking to Somnambulated, I must be loosing it.

 

This thread has become surreal.

 

Dude, how'd you quote someone before they posted? That's creepy!

 

I know, it's a new trick.

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions for a flexible plastic I could use for this application, any suggests at all.

The vendor on ebay emailed back telling me that 1/8th abs is a bit of a bind to bend - needs to be heated and then bent evenly.

 

Use a DVD case, I have before in a mustang. worked fine. color matches well too.

 

Don't think it'll be big enough.

I'm going to mock this on tomorrow with some super thin perspex I have lying around (huge cheap picture frame front I got from the office dumpster).

Once I have something by way of a template I'll post pix.

 

I agree with glassing it. You could probably even paint it at home. Good luck though.