Installing My Custom Speaker Grill Cover Plates

This morning I installed my custom speaker grill cover plates I had made out of some Lexan plastic I had on hand. I let the paint dry over night and gave them a bit of a wet sanding in the morning, cleaned them up and painted them again. Now they are installed into my Knight Rider 2 TV Dash. They may not be as perfect as if they were store bought but not bad at all for hand crafted, I'm happy with them. Now comes the age old question "To paint the screw heads or not paint the screw heads?"

On one hand I kind of like that little bit of silver but I also would not mind if they blended in too. Decisions, decisions. lol Anyways I'm happy that little job turned out.

On another note though it turns out that my dummy row closes to the monitors has a bad board, maybe a chip so Knight Rider World is going to replace the board for me. I'm surprised I never noticed before but after reviewing my very fist start up test of the dash it had always been like that so I know it's not something that just kind of happened. Just as well I have the dash out to put my custom speaker grill cover plates in and to do a little trimming on the drivers side of the dash mounting wing. Might as well pull that bad board and ship it back to K.R.W.

Adding Some Speaker Grill Cover Plates

Yesterday I cut out the stock OEM speaker grill I salvaged from the red parts car. I cut them so as they fit into the recessed areas of the Knight Rider Dash for the speaker holes. At first they looked a little odd to me because the actual rectangular hole in the grills is on a bit of an angle which was throwing me off for a while. But that's just the way they were made. Even the speakers in the stock OEM dash under the dash pad are set at the same odd angle.

I then made a cardboard template (left) for each side of the dash, one for each cover plate I would make. Here you can see how the speaker matches the odd angle of the elongated octagonal hole I'm making. I made the hole octagonal to kind of go with the same theme that my season one monitor frames have. The next step was to cut my cover plates out of some Lexan plastic I had on hand. I would then need to file and sand them so as they fit nicely over the stock OEM speaker grills that will be set into the recessed area of the dash. The one of the drivers side is cut different to accommodate the Countdown Indicators channel.

Once both of my cover plates were made I gave them a good sanding to scuff up the surface a little so they will be ready for painting. First though I marked where I would drill my holes so as I can bolt them onto the dash when they are ready. Here you can see the cover plates (left) I have them resting on top of the car before I drilled the holes. A little more sanding first though and then they should be good to go. Finally the painting (right). Once this side is dry I'll flip them and do the other side. By tomorrow they should be OK to install into the dash.

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. :)

Second Dash Test Fitting - POWER!

Yesterday seeing how I now had all of the electronics installed into my Knight Rider 2 TV Dash I figured it was definitely time for another test fitting in the Trans Am. This time would be a powered test since I know for sure now that my dash gauge cluster wires are wired correctly to the plug. I was pretty sure they were as I had done it very carefully and spent a lot of time making sure that I had labeled each wire carefully. But even still, being new to all of this I had my minor doubts. Here you can see my dash resting upside down on the back of my car (left), in preparation to be test fitted into the car. For this test I would simply be getting my dash into as close a position as possible to see what sort of tweaks and adjustments I would need to do and I would only be hooking up the gauge cluster plug and my plug I had most recently made for my GPS and LCD screens.

Here you can see my dash test fitted into the car (above left & right). Tough to get it in and I can even feel that it will need to be shimmed up and adjusted in some ways. I had a very difficult time getting my Quick Release steering wheel adapter on so some tweaks will need to be done there. Also it was very difficult to get the key into the ignition to turn on the car so some adjusting will need to be done there too. I think I may need to adjust my steering column a little to one side to get it to align better with the top middle part of the Switch Pods.

Here you can see my dash turned on (left). I did notice that the power seemed to have an intermittent connection in my dash gauge cluster plug so I think during all of my out of the car test in my back room the plug connection must have gotten damaged a little. Those pins in the Molex connectors can be pretty delicate and I think when I had two just inserted in for power and ground and held in place with an Alligator clip that somehow the female end of the pin must have gotten inadvertently widened. So I'll need to either re-pin it or just snip the power and two ground connections from my gauge cluster plug and wire them up to a different plug. Most likely one of those more sturdier trailer hitch plugs as the pins in those are factory sealed and very durable. I have to admit if I could have found one of those that was a 10 or 20 pin connector I would have used a couple of those for my dash gauge cluster connections. Oh well, live and learn ;)

I thought also during my dash powered test fitting that one of my "Dummy" rows of LEDs were not working but after reviewing some of my very early dash start up tests I could see that the board always acts that way so I guess that's just the way that one board works.

Over all I was very happy with my latest test fitting even though I can see I have a good deal of adjusting to do to get the dash to fit just right. Being new to this hobby I'm not sure how a lot of the other Knight Rider car builders tackle these many issues so I'll be doing some research on that to see if I can get some helpful pointers and tips that I will pass on here.

Finalizing The Monitors Installation

I'm far from done working for the day but I figured I would take a quick coffee break and do a little update on what I have done so far for today. Here you can see my LCD monitor video board mounted onto a Lexan plastic mounting board I custom made, took me a little while to come up with a configuration that would work well for mounting in this board. Luckily I was able to add on an additional piece of Lexan plastic to further help mount the video board to the inside of the dash, it also served as a good place to mount the Step-down converter from 12V DC to 5V DC.

I also added on a Molex connector for the power and ground wires for both my LCD screen that will get hooked up to a PC and my GPS unit. The little extra board that came with the LCD screen that has 5 tactile buttons on it for adjusting the LCD screen settings, I added on some 22 AWG wires that also go into the Molex connector. Those wires will go to the bottom buttons of my make shift Space Matt buttons seeing how this little board will be not very accessible in under the dash. I do have them mounted in a way that they can be worked if the dash is ever taken out for servicing at any point. But the lower console Space Matt buttons seem ideally suited for such a function. I'll also hook them up to the V.B. DTMF tone Random Generator.

Also now that the S-1 Monitor Frames have been painted and clear coated I reinstalled the two monitors back into the frame. I just applied a little blue Thread-lock to the threads holding in the circuit boards for the GPS and the LCD Monitor attached my custom Lexan plastic mounting. In a short while before the day is out I'll mount the monitors frame back into the dash. I fired up my air compressor to blow out any dust and debris inside of my dash first though. This afternoon I'm hoping to get the other end of the Molex connector wired up and the Monitors frame back into the dash. Hopefully I'll get the LCD screen's video board all mounted into place too.... we'll see how the rest of the day goes. ;)

More Shaping Of The Dash Underside Cover Plate

After much sanding and even some more glass work the cover plate is getting to fit the form of the dash much better. I "Bull-nosed" or "Beveled" the outer edges close to the front of the dash. I still need to add a little more glass in one area where it looks like the only place I will be able to put a screw in is one of the Aluminum brackets holding in the electronics because it is in an ideal position for a mounting screw. 

You can see that from the front view the underside cover plate should be pretty hard to see once it is finished, primed and painted. But I am a ways away yet. I still need to do a test fit of the dash again and see how far back towards the stock OEM dash that I may need to extend the cover plate. I also need to glass in an Aluminum "L" bracket to the dash on the far right of the dash to be able to screw in that end of the cover plate too.

Shaping The Dash Underside Cover Plate To Fit

After a good deal of cutting and filing I got the basic shape of my cover plate to fit into the underside of the dash. To make it a bit more of a snug almost "Jig-Saw-Like" fit I re-taped it into position with painters tape, masked off any exposed areas and then coated the painters tape in the areas that I plan to put more layers of fibreglass and then coated the area with a layer of white glue to act as a barrier between the tape and fibreglass. Once the glue dries I'll glass over those areas and make kind of a "Lip" so the underside plate will fit nice into that area. My guess is that when I do a test fit I will need to extend the area of my cover plate that fits closer to the stock OEM dash. But I'll cross that path when I get there.

This little project is turning out to be a lot more work than I had bargained for but it should fit nicer though with all of the extra work. That being said I can't say as I would recommend doing it this way unless you have a lot of patience ;)  

Trimming The Dash Underside Cover Plate

After the fibreglass was set I started peeling off all of the masking tape and then peeled off the Styrofoam form I had made. The white glue acted as an excellent barrier both preventing the resin from eating or dissolving the Styrofoam and made for a smooth inner surface, not that anyone is ever going to see it lol. I trimmed off the rough edges with a coping saw and filed them down a little.

Next up was do do a little test fitting of my newly formed cover plate to see what kinds of additional adjustment I am going to need to make. As you can see on the curved part of the dash I will need to file down and then add in some more fibreglass and resin to make it fit more flush with the edge of the dash. Overall though it is coming along much better than I though this project would. Once I get my cover plate to fit nicely around the edges I can sand the exposed side of the cover plate smooth and then it should be ready for priming and painting. 

2 TV Dash Monitor Frame Arrived

I got my frame for the 2 TV dash yesterday from Knightscan. lol I think he might have been in a rush to deliver as I had to clean paper towel off of the face that had stuck to the surface, my guess is that he packed it before the paint had fully dried. No biggie as I have to strip it down and file the insides of each window flat to match the angled edges of the frame, if I don't then I loose valuable screen viewing real-estate. My fault really, I sort of assumed this particular frame fit five inch LCD screens, it does but only just.

Season 1 Monitor Frames Ordered

I ordered my season one monitor frames today from Knightscan on eBay. They had the best price I was happy with and at this time of year who doesn't need to save a few bucks ;) I like this shape too as I have always been fond of the season one monitor frames, they kind of remind me of Battlestar Galactica for some reason?? Don't know why but I like it ;) I think also I am going to get my LCD 5 inch touch screens from Adafruit as they seem to have the best price and a wide range of 5 inch LCD screens to choose from.

Installing The Molex Connectors For The Switch Pod Buttons

To help make installing the Knight Rider 2 TV Dash a lot easier I started adding in a 12 Pin Molex Connector for connecting my Switch Pod Button wires to the Mini Relays board that will be installed under the OEM plastic dash in the car.


This Molex Connector will be for the left hand Switch Pod Buttons, the right hand buttons will be on a separate Molex Connector depending on what is being hooked up to them. Whatever it may be I can still see them needing to go through a Relay so another Molex Connector will be the logical choice. I still need to add the wires to the connector for the other buttons but I'll do that tomorrow sometime. I'll need to pick up another Molex Connector just to have on hand for when I get around to adding a little extra length to the right hand Switch pod Buttons wires and running them to the Relay board when I figure out what I want them to activate.

Dash Views - Final Stages Of Completion

With my Knight Rider dash now clear coated and left to dry overnight morning time taking off the masking tape I must have been like a little kid opening his presents Christmas morning, lol at least it certainly felt that way as I carefully but feverishly peeled off each strip of masking tape being extra careful to cut around any edges that might stick with my X-acto knife. As each layer of tape peeled away revealing the gleaming Lexan displays I could not help but giggle with glee like a school girl ;) lol... Yeah I know I'm such a kid with this stuff ;)

With all the masking tape off and giving the dash a good going over I can see it could use a little wet sanding and then polishing here and there with a Polishing Compound. Nothing major though and I would bet over time just the good polishing here and there would eventually take out any minor surface roughs from the clear coating. Over all I'm very pleased with the way my dash has turned out. Looking at it all glossy with the Lexan plastic overlays I had made for each of the displays it looks really sharp. Very sci-fi like and futuristic, it's a no wonder I have always loved this dash in K.I.T.T.

I need to let the dash sit for a few days to let it fully cure, but in the meantime another little job I need to do is to had paint the Voice Box Bezel, I figure it will be easier to just spray some paint from the can into a small container and use a fine brush to paint the Bezel, I'll have a lot more control over the paint this way. With this stage of my dash out of the way the only thing to do is replace those fake temporary T.V. screens with real 5 inch LCD touch screens. Another thing is to work out which one of the Switch Pod Buttons I want to use to cycle the Message Centre. I have a plan for that I posted a few articles back about how to wire each Switch Pod Button individually. For the Message Centre Cycle button all it needs to do is close a ground connection on the board terminal and this can be done with a simple SPST Relay, a Mini-Relay would be more than good enough for something that simple.

Outside of all of that my Knight Rider Dash is getting super close to completion compared to several months ago in January of 2014 when it first arrived from Knight Rider World in Italy. It's been a lot of work, fun, and sometimes frustrating but very rewarding work too, especially to finally see it at this stage of completion. :)