Third Dash Test Fitting

Another test fitting today of my Knight Rider 2 TV Dash after trimming a little bit off of the drivers side mounting wing on the dash and sticking down the pipe insulation I ran across the front of the stock OEM dash. I drilled in a few holes and Zip-Tied down the pipe insulation to the OEM dash just to be doubly sure it not going anywhere. After letting the 3M glue dry overnight I also removed the masking tape from around the steering column that I had glued on a piece of the pipe insulation and a piece of high density foam rubber to help raise up the front of the Switch Pods to match the Gull-wing a lot better. I put the dash in for another test fitting and it's definitely fitting better after those tweaks. I think I can still trim a little more off of the mounting wing on the drivers side but I would not take off too much more though as it's fitting pretty good now. Although I did try and put my windshield side moulding back on the window column to see if that would fit, it doesn't so I'm not sure what others have done to rectify that. I do know now that I don't need so many power wires going up to the Upper Console when I can get away with either a 16 or 10 AWG wire to feed power to the upper console. This would minimize the amount of wires I currently have running up both sides of the window column. I can then run that power wire to my fuse block I have installed on the passenger side hush panel. That way both the Upper and Lower consoles will get their power from that block.

My next job for today was to work out what to do with my speaker grills. Fortunately I had gotten some from the red parts car I had which is great because my car for some reason did not have any installed into the stock OEM Dash Pad. Now because my speakers kind of stick up a little this was going to be a little more tricky than I originally thought it was. My initial plan was to try ands see if I could somehow mount the speaker grills in under the Knight Rider Dash but due to the lack of space I figured I would need to modify them to fit into the recessed areas in the Knight Rider Dash made for the speakers. As you can see in the samples (above left & right) I have cut the passenger side speaker grill to fit nicely into the recessed speaker holes in the fibreglass dash. I'll do the same to the other side taking into account that it is shaped a little different because it is pretty close to the Countdown Indicators channel.

Here you can probably see the difference in the shape of the speaker recess area on the drivers side. It's kind of notched out a bit to accommodate the Countdown Indicators area so I will need to reflect that change in the speaker grill for this side. I'll most likely trace out the other one on a piece of cardboard and make the change to it and gets fit it in and then cut out the speaker grill to match.

Once they fit nice I'll cut out a recessed area in the "Slats" of the speaker grills to allow for a countersunk screw in a few areas and then secure the speaker grills to the Knight Rider Dash. I'll probably clean them up and repaint them too before securing them in just so they will look a lot nicer.

2 TV Dash Installation Tweaks

After a lot of experimenting with ways to get the Knight Rider 2 TV Dash to fit perfectly I think I have a pretty good handle on it. Yesterday I tried this option using a long piece of foam pipe insulation I had kicking around. This is a 2" diameter split pipe insulation I got from Home Depot. For my test fitting I just simply taped it into position while I test fitted the dash again.

I noticed that with the pipe insulation in under the front of the dash that it raised up the front of the dash enough that turning the key in the ignition is much easier, it still rubs a little but my dash can also still go up another 1/4 inch approximately to light up the top of the Gull-Wing with the top of the Switch Pods this extra room should make the Ignition Key Collar clear the top part of the dash. I have even been informed that you can trim off the top part of the Ignition Key Collar that interferes with the dash if needed. I'll only resort to that if absolutely necessary.

I took two "Rubber Cups" square rubber blocks you can get from Canadian Tire or most furniture stores so as your furniture legs don't mark up your floors, I placed them close to the passenger side under the foam pipe insulation to give that part of the dash a little more height as it looked like it needed levelling up a bit to match my Switch Pods.

The drivers side of the dash needs to be pushed in more but I was noticing the the side mounting "Wing" was butting right up against the stock OEM dash so I needed to trim off a little of that. I figure about a good half inch by the looks of the picture (above right). So I trimmed of a little less than that to try it out and see if it makes a difference, if it does I'll file off a little more. I basically want to try and get the part of the dash that fits up close to the windshield in under that black masking or whatever it is that goes around the outer edge of the windshield. I think that is how it's supposed to fit.

Here are a few shots of yesterdays dash test fitting, it's really starting to come together and look really good. I still have a few minor tweaks to do like see how it looks now that I had put the "Rubber Cups" in under the pipe insulation close to the passenger side and see if that levelled out the dash that extra bit for the Switch Pods.

I also put a piece of foam pipe insulation over top of the steering wheel column and glued on a piece of high density foam rubber on top of that to help raise up the front part of the Switch Pods to help clear the top of the Ignition Key Collar.

I'll be doing another test fitting to see how those tweaks look today. I had to leave my foam pipe insulation over night to let the 3M glue set that I stuck it down to the stock OEM dash with so today it should be fine for me to go ahead and see how my tweaks will work out. I also hooked up the Voice Box yesterday for a test, first time I have ever done that. If you watched my latest video you'll see that is working really well. K.I.T.T. is REALLY starting to come to life. :)

Monitor Frames Modifications

Well after struggling with which route I wanted to go with my 2 TV Dash Monitors I finally decided to try and do something with the season one monitor frames I had bought from Knight Scan. I figured seeing how I had them and I had have two monitors, one that can be hooked up to a computer and another that is a GPS System I might as well try and get them to play nice with each other VS the other rather expensive option of getting a new monitors frame and new LCD monitors. I can always do that later, but for now if I want to get this dash in the car before the end of the summer I might as well work with what I have already on hand.

So I have filed out the middles of the monitor frames to make them fit the small 5 inch LCD screens I have. One of my main concerns before was if after making the modification it would still look good and retain much of it's original look. On the sides they are much thinner but this was going to be inevitable if I was to modify them to fit my LCD screens. I think they still look good, so after some additional fine tuning with my files and sand paper it was time to apply the first coat of primer and see how they look. So far so good so I can begin the process of working out a good way to install the LCD screens into the back of the monitor frames. I have a few ideas on how to go about this that I will share as I go along so keep posted ;)

Top Countdown Indicators Install

I was having some issues trying to determine the best way for me to install the top Count Down Indicators. This is another one of those items that everyone seems to do differently. I thought about cutting out the bottom of the channel on the dash that they sit in and finding a way of securing them in through the bottom of the dash. I was not really sure how to go about mounting them as they seem pretty delicate. I figured perhaps what I would do instead is to drill 4 holes into the side of the channel for the wires to thread through because on my last test fitting of the dash I was not 100 percent sure that the bottom of the Count Down Indicators channel was making the dash rest too high at that side, figured there might be some more dash plastic cutting in order, either that or to trim off the bottom of the channel. So in any event threading the wires in through the side wall of the channel seemed to make the best sense for now.

Next was the problem of how best to secure them in. I thought about using a long thin bolt in through the sides of the channel into a few holes that I could drill in the sides of the Count Down Indicators plastic away from the electronics, that was one thought. Someone on Face Book suggested the idea of using Velcro to strap the indicators in place, I liked that idea, but this would have worked if I had cut out the bottom of the channel. So I figured that perhaps I could secure the indicators in by making some kind of cover for them that I could glass into place and would give them a more moulded to the dash look. I had originally cut out a piece of Aluminum and bent it into the "Step" shape of the Count Down Indicators. This I was going to fit over top of the indicators and cut out holes for the light covers. But as it turns out the choice of Aluminum I used was little too thick and It was a little too long on once of the middle steps. So I decided to go with a thin card stock instead. It was either that or pick up some thinner stock Aluminum and try again. But I figure that if I was just going to glass over my cover plate anyways then something to just keep the fibre glass resin away from the Count Down Indicators but yet give support enough to keep the indicators in place is all I really need. It would mean a bit of a small messy job mixing up small batches of resin and using a small brush to do the job though.

After I test fit my card stock cover plate to make sure it was going to fit good I cut out the holes for the indicator light faces. I used some tape to hold the card stock cover plate to the Count Down Indicators during the glassing in place process. I thought I might need to put a weight on top of them to hold them down but just friction alone seemed to do the job. So I threaded the wires for the Indicators back in through the holes I had drilled into the side of the channel and sunk the Count Down Indicators into the channel making them ready to be carefully glassed into place.

Once I had glassed them in place I could now begin to file and sand the fibre glass resin down to match the shape more. The tricky part was trying not to get any resin of the light cover faces which I ended up doing a little anyways. That I can Dremel off with some very fine bits anyways but it will be a bit of a pain in the back side for sure as I'll have to try not to Dremel into the plastic light covers. I did end up accidentally removing a little bit of the letter "P" on the "POWER" indicator, something I will need to fix. Probably with those rub down letters you can get.

Once the resin had been sanded down enough I was able to mask off the light cover faces and then prime the whole area with sandable primer. This way I can sand and file some more and get a better idea of where I am sitting with what needs to be done more in the area of sanding and filling. It's not completely done gets but it's getting closer and closer. I still need to do some more sanding and filing in some areas but both the Voice Box Bezel and top Count Down Indicators are starting to look good. I like the way they are starting to look more moulded to the dash rather that just "Stuck On." 

Dash Test Fitting

Here are a few views of my first dash fitting with the 2 TV Knight Rider Dash. There is a good deal of work to be done before the dash is fully ready to be installed but at least now I have done the test fit and I know what kind of things need to be done. Mostly small stuff like:

•  Duct Re-routing
• Stock Dash Top Trimming
• Mounting the Switch Pods
• Working Out Screw Locations
• Wiring Loom Locations

And much, much more I'm sure. But as mentioned in my last post it gave me an awesome opportunity to have a good look at what kind of space I have to work with inside of the dash. One thing in particular is that without the Gauge Cluster plastic in there it sure opens up the inside of the stock OEM plastic dash a good deal and allows for all kinds of extra space to work in additional wire looms for any additional electronic "DooDads" that might get added in later on down the road.

Here is a shot of inside behind my Knight Rider Dash before I did any trimming of the stock OEM Dash Plastic. As you can see it's already pretty roomy back there. Even after I trimmed about an inch across the top of the drivers side dash plastic when I took a look under there again it looked like I might not have even needed to trim the top of the dash at all. But my initial first test fit looked like I needed to so it got trimmed. Oh well, I guess it makes for an easier fitting later on and we all know that whatever makes the job go smoother in the long run is a definite good thing ;)

Gage cluster connectors

Gage cluster connectors detail

I have taken the liberty of identifying am labelling each of the wires on the connectors that connect to the circuit pathways on the back of the gage cluster. I figured I would do this for educational purposes and to help anyone wishing to not use the gage cluster when installing either their Knight Rider dash or any other kind of after market digital dash setups.

Dash Cutting

Working on cutting out the dash plastic. I did some delicate cutting out around the area I had marked out and found I needed to cut a little more. I gained a little more wire slack on that lower white dash cluster connector, not much but a little. I'm going to experiment a little on the connectors pulled from the parts car and see if I can devise a crafty way of connecting directly to the copper tabs on those connectors. I have a few ideas, one of which is to make a special "Long Spade" style connector using some stock copper that I can cut and attach a ring connector to and then cover that with a wire cover something similar to heat shrink tubing. If my plan works ands the connections are solid enough, by that I mean able to withstand any shock the car will naturally be succumbed to during and kind of driving, then I may go with that method. My other option is to cap off any wires that are not needed and just butt connect longer wires that I will label and connect to a 20 pin Male / Female connector to the dash electronics.... we'll see. ;)

Dash Connectors Install Plan

I think I have a route chosen for how I want to do my dash install. I've been humming and hawing a great deal on what would be the best way to do this. Now I know a lot of folks simply make their connections right to the back of the dash gage cluster which is fine, but to me seems a bit of a waste, I mean why have the dash cluster there at all if all you are using is just the circuit pathways?? Why not just identify the coloured wires that you nee to tap into and not use the gage cluster at all if you don't need to?? I know it can be done, I saw a video on YouTube where it looks like they are pretty much doing just that.

You can see in the above video that they clearly do not use the gage cluster at all which to me seems like a more cleaner and professional dash install.

By examining the wires at the connectors it seems to me that one should be able to determine where each wire is going on the back of the gage cluster by following the circuit pathways and using it's colour code.

My thought is to either cut off these connectors or just use T-Taps and patch a wire right into each wire needed. my other thought is to butt connect additional colour coded wires to each wire once the connectors have been snipped off at the wires. If I do that I will need greater access to the wires on the white lower connector, that sucker is in there tighter than a Nun's Bible lol

So I'm thinking what I might end up needing to do is make a cutout in the dash plastic to pull the wires out of the dash a little more in order to make my butt connections for adding additional wire and giving them more length for connection to the dash via a 20 pin male / female connector.

I have an idea of where I will make my cutout to gain access to the wire a little more seen here in my photo showing my red dotted lines for my intended cutting.  Seeing how the top part of the dash may need to be trimmed a little anyways depending on if it interferes with the electronics on the back of my 2 TV Dash. I see that some people have needed to trim the top of their dash depending on how "Beefy" the back of their electronics install is. So what's a few more cuts in the plastic I figure. My only other option is to take the dash out and lengthen the wires to the connectors and then reinstall the dash plastic which is a real pain in the backside, I've taken out that whole assembly on the parts car so I know how much of a pain it is, much easier to just make a simple cut in the plastic and pull the wires through, strip off the ends and butt connect longer wires to the ends. I'll keep the connectors so I can doubly make sure of which wires went where.

Gage Cluster Prep Work

Just starting to do a little work on prepping my gage cluster for hookup to the new dash electronics. I'm trying to determine if this circuit on the back of this gage is part of the gage cluster board or if it can be safely removed with the gage? I'm getting ready to attach some wires to the correct locations on the back of the gage cluster. I want to see if I can have my connections go to plugs that can be connected and disconnected for convenience of any future maintenance that may ever need to be done to the dash.

Examining the gage cluster circuit board on the back it seems to me that it is simply running connections to the lights, and various gages, so I'm wondering why not just simply make your connections to the connectors that are attached to the dash that the gage cluster inserts into. To me this would make for a much cleaner and less complicated install. If anyone has any thoughts to share on this or if you think I'm WAY off the mark please feel free to chime in and offer up some clues or rock hard solid ways that you did your dash install. Please bear in mind that my Trans Am is a 1982 and does not have that yellow box on the back of the gage cluster that is for the VSS system. now I'm not sure if that makes a difference if any??

I took a couple of closeup shot of my connectors that the gage cluster plugs into. I just need to check and confirm my wire colours to make sure which wire is for which gage. I'll compare them with the illustration in the Service Manual and double check with the instructions for the 2 TV Dash install. If I can just connect these connections to plugs that I can rig up for the dash then any future maintenance will be a lot easier to do than having to pull the whole gage cluster out along with the dash and all of it's electronics. ;)