Upper Console Installed

FINALLY! Got the Upper Console installed, finger marks all over it, I guess I should have polished it a little before taking pictures but Oh well, one thing at a time. First time when I was test fitting it yesterday I connected up the Car battery to give it a run through, as it turned out my Fog Lights switches were not working, when I was spray painting the console I ended up getting spray pain inside of the Molex Connectors so some of the connections were "Masked" for lack of a better word. So I ended up spending a good hour yesterday cleaning out the paint with Acetone and some pipe cleaners. Hooked it up today after another cleaning session and everything appears to be working fine now. Funny thing is that when I was spray paining the Upper Console, in my mind I kept telling myself:

"You better mask off this connectors chum otherwise you're gonna have a problem."

But did I?.... Nope... Oh well, live and learn right ;) Anyways, job done and the Upper Console is FINALLY installed. Seems like it has been such long & troublesome journey getting this blasted part installed. For many that have been following along you will remember WAY back I had the other version of the console but had not only fitment issues with it but I had later on decided that it was a little too boring of a Upper Console for my taste so I bought this one only to discover similar fitment issues, that's what I get for buying parts from anyone other than a reputable parts vendor. Sometimes in this hobby you spend so much you are tempted to try and cut a few corners by getting a good deal with someone either selling some parts on eBay or "Face Book" in my case. As you know I had to heavily modify this Upper Console in order to make it fit properly, it seems to now but what a pain in the backside it was getting it there. Like I have mentioned before, If you don't mind doing a lot of custom work then buying some cheaper parts is a pretty good way to experiment, but if your looking for quick and simple I'd say make sure your parts you are buying are from a reputable parts vendor otherwise you'll be in for some extra work like I had to do.

Re-Finishing The Rear Side Speaker Covers

I re-finished my rear side speaker covers using some of the left over Headliner fabric. I actually found these to be a lot simpler to do than the Headliner, maybe because they are smaller or it might even have been the fact that I had the original fabric to use as a template to cut the shape of the new material out of. In any even they were easier to do. The one thing I did do is re-attach the clips on the back with some rivets used in leather work. I really did not like the way they installed those clips, seemed a pretty weak way of doing it if you ask me, in fact a few of the metal clips had actually fallen off over time, I saved them and riveted them in place (top left & right).

I used the Headliner adhesive spray to apply the new material after carefully taking off the old material, which was in surprisingly good shape, just the colour no longer matched the new Headliner so it had to go ;)

You can see my finished pieces here (left). They turned out great! :)

Applying The Headliner Fabric

First time ever doing this so this was fun. I didn't have the shape of the original fabric so some guess work was involved in how best to do this. I traced out the Headliner shape trying to leave a good two inches for overlap. Next step the messy, (Well hopefully not too messy) job of gluing on the Headliner fabric.

I applied the glue is stages working from the middle outwards. This is the Headliner before the backsides were folded over and glued into place. (Left) On the right you can see my finished job of how I folded the overlaps over. I'm not a pro. at this so the Pro's may very well do this differently, this seemed logical based on the video demo I watched on YouTube on how "JEG's Garage" did his Headliner fabric install. I probably could have done my inside back corners a little better but overall I'm happy with it for a very first time ever doing this. I'm just super happy I managed to not get any of the glue on the good side of the Headliner fabric. ;)

Here is my finished Headliner lying on my kitchen floor ;)

Test Fitting The Headliner

Test fitting the fibreglass headliner by Joe Penko. this thing fits like  glove, I have the holes cut and all lined up with the mounting holes in the car, now I just need to apply the headliner fabric which should arrive today. The next step will be to install the heavily modified Upper Console.

I have the fist stages of the priming going on, I have some spot sanding to do still and then prime it again before painting, then let it cure for a week. once that is done I should be able to get the Upper Console installed.... lol I'm hoping to get that done before the snow flies.... apparently we are in for an early winter here in Winnipeg, go figure.... summer went by WAY too fast this year.

Upper Console Modifications

I had to make some modifications to the Upper Console I had bought from someone on Face Book. As luck would have it the upper console did not fit very well in the front almost like it was a little warped and possibly was not glassed enough on both sides and front on the console. The back part fit fine although a little snug so I'm still a little concerned about how that will fit after the Headliner fabric has been applied to the fibreglass headliner I got from Joe Penko. I might need to take my heat  gun to the back part of the console to spread it out a little.... we'll see.

But this is the stage I'm at so far with the additional glass work I had to do to the Upper Console to make it fit better.... always something with some of these fibreglass parts if you buy them from someone other than a reputable vendor. This is why the Foundation has the "Trusted Vendor" list. This in some ways I have learn ed the hard way with this project. We all like a bargain and we all like to try and save some money on our Knight Rider projects when and wherever possible, but in doing so you have to be prepared for the fact that you are in many cases going to end up doing some customizing on fibreglass parts from vendors that are not on the "Trusted Vendors" list, which is OK I guess so long as you don't mind doing the extra work. ;)

Working Feverishly on The knight O.S.

This was me today working feverishly on the Knight O.S. dash software. We are fast getting closer and closer to being done, we basically just need to do some VR tweaks, find a suitable system to run our Knight O.S. on and then the beta should be ready I would think.

5 Inch LCD Touch Screens Installed Into Frames

I have installed the 5 inch touch screens into the monitor frames I got from Knight Rider World. I think because my 5 Inch screens were a little different than the ones that KRW uses I had to make a few modifications on how I attached all of the electronics to the back part of the frames. It took me the better part of this morning to figure out a good way to secure the boards to the back of the frames. I didn't have any circuit board spacers on hand so I used some plastic rigid tubing I had that I cut into short lengths and slipped over top of my long bolts that I used to secure the circuit boards to the back plate of the monitor frames. They seem to be pretty solid so unless they break I think they should be OK for now.

After I finished I soldered up the female end of the power connectors and then with fingers crossed I plugged them into my 12 Volt power supply pack. They started up OK so that is good, no shorts in the wiring. Hopefully I have enough separation between the circuit boards to allow for good air flow. I'm not sure how warm the boards will get if the monitors are on for any great deal of time, that is something to test out of the car for sure is a good endurance test of the monitor's electronics. I think they should be OK though. Next will be to test them out with the Knight O.S.

Knight O.S. Surveillance Mode Module Installed

I installed the Knight O.S. Surveillance mode module just under where I have my Voice Projection button & Knight Rider Theme cut off buttons installed. I hooked it up to our Knight O.S. via my Mac book.... gotta use that until I find a suitable P.C. to use in the car.... rough but it gives you an idea of what is supposed to happen, My Dash is out while I'm working on installing the new monitor frames for the 5 inch LCD touch screens..... over all it's coming together though.... keep a look out for a video demo coming up soon.