Upper Console Update

I marked and cut out my holes into the Upper Console with my Dremel tool. Each hole cut to fit each of my five DPDT lighted rocker switches. I was toying with the idea of making an aluminum plate with the holes for the switches cut into it but the rockers have their own plastic bezels so I figure this should be good enough. I then inserted the switches into the holes and snapped them into place. Next step will be to wire them up. I am going to wire these in a way that they will be lighted only when turned on.

More Work on the Upper Console

While working on getting those Fog Lights working I came to realize what an Octopus of wires I had going on in that upper console. I mean I had taken precautions and made sure everything was labeled and tucked away neatly but pulling it down to have a look at my lighted rocker switches that the Fog Lights were using it was quite a complex mess of wires. I have added four more lighted rocker switches to the front part of the console, this time I  went with mini-rockers.

My next job to tackle will be to take all of those somewhat chaotic wires and organize them better and make it so they are connected using a multi-pin connector, most likely 2 or 3 Molex Multi-Pin Connectors. I'm figuring at least a 16 pin for the Rocker Switches along the side, a 12 pin for the mini rockers at the front of the console and 6 pin connector for the Push Buttons. One of the other things I am going to do to save on having a lot of wires running around up there is to combine my ground wires from the rockers like in my diagram on the right. I will run the ground wires from the rockers into a slightly larger gauge wire and run that into a terminal on one of my Molex Multi-Pin Connectors and then run the other end into my ground bus I made in the T-Bar on the car. This should hopefully save a lot of unnecessary wire. I did a similar thing on my car Relays for the Fog Lights and it's working out very well so far. One other thing I did was to make the rocker switches for my Fog Lights into green lighted rockers just to give them some more distinction from the others that are unassigned. 

Upper Console Installed

I have the upper console pretty much installed. I have some tweaking to do and I want to see if I can add some more felt around the top edge to try and tidy up my install a little more. I also want to make sure my wires are tucked away neatly inside of the console, I did a pretty good job but there are a lot of wires in there so I just want to be doubly, doubly sure that there are not any pinched wires or wires that are not properly insulated that could cause a short, a short would be very bad! :(

I have the push buttons wires run down the drivers side windshield frame and under the dash to be plugged into the tone generator on the Knight Rider World Voice Box. They too can be hooked up to do things individually but that would be a whole load more wires to deal with so for now I'm OK with them just being hooked up to a tone generator when I put the Knight Rider 2 T.V. dash in. I have the rocker switches wired, the first two as mentioned before are for the front Fog Lights, the other four switches are not yet assigned for any purpose yet, not sure what I'll use them for just yet.

The headliner near the front will need some additional padding as I appear to have a gap there that needs to be filled, perhaps some 1/2" foam rubber under the headliner will do the trick? I'll see what I can do about that.

I'll follow up a little more on my install with a video as I know there are many out there who seem to like my videos.

Upper Console Update 2

Finally got the primer and a good 2 coats of universal black paint on the upper console and put in my custom rocker switch bezel and switches. I'm just waiting on the last lighted rocker switch that is being shipped from Calgary to Active Tech Electronics Canada, that should be ready for me to just walk down and pick up on either Monday or Tuesday, they'll call me and then I can just walk down and pick it up. lol I live close by so the place it just a 15 minute walk away. ;)

Then all I need is something cool to put into that forward electronics area, I might just put a simple digital clock in there along with a few extra momentary push buttons.... we'll see ;)

Some More Work on the Upper Console

I did some more work on the Upper Console with getting the multi coloured buttons mounted in place. I had to make some more mounting brackets using some "L" channel aluminum. I cut out middle sections and bent tabs outwards for mounting my Lexan plastic strips too that I ran through the centre part of the electronics board sandwich between the button bases.

I Contact cemented the aluminum brackets in place similar to the ones on the 2 TV Dash electronics install. Once the Contact cement was set I fibre glassed the brackets securely to the underside of the Upper Console.

Once the fibreglass resin was set overnight I had to do a little more filling to better accommodate my buttons assembly a little better. Once that was done I was able to drill some holes in the folded out tabs to place in some small bolts and washers to secure the board to the inside of the console. I wish I had pre-drilled my holes before I fibre glassed my brackets in place because it was a real pain in the butt drilling the holes with the brackets already fibre glassed in place. Just a little mental note for next time should I find I have to mount my buttons this way again.

Finally I Contact Cemented my black plastic trim into place. I have a little clean up to do once the Contact Cement dries tomorrow, but that's OK because I still need to pick up the other buttons for the console and install those before I can paint it. I also need to do another test fit in the car and see if I can figure out where to drill my holes for the mounting screws. I'm also still trying to decide if I want to keep my roof light assembly and if so if I should mount it to the back part of the console. I have removed the light assembly from the car and have it sitting on my work bench. I wouldn't mind keeping it, all I would have to do is extend the wires and make a hole in the back of the Upper Console to accommodate the light fixture. 

A Little Work on the Upper Console

Yesterday I started to do some work on the Upper Console. So far I only have the one set of buttons I ordered from Jupiter Electronics but I figured I might as well install them just to get a good start on that little project. The buttons from Jupiter are awesome, beautiful workmanship and they look great. I cut my hole for the buttons and test fit them into the console to see where I would be sitting as far as tweaks goes.

Because of the available space for mounting I was truing to figure out a good way to make these buttons more mountable.

I had a fair amount of that "Lexan" Plexiglas left over from installing my 2 TV Dash Electronics so I figured maybe I can use that to make some kind of mounting system. I cut strips that were about just a hair under 1/2" wide by about 2 1/2" long, sanded them down until they fit securely between the electronics board and the top of the buttons mounting plate, I slid two strips one on each side of the button rows and then bolted them together.

 You can see in this closeup view how I have my strips of Plexiglas set up along the length of the electronics buttons board. This set up prevents the whole buttons assembly from just simply dropping out through the hole cut into the console.

Now I have not gone out and test fit the upper console in place yet so I'm not sure what kind of space is available inside of the console between that and the head liner. I guess I should do that just to get a heads up. I will do that today to see how it fits for one things and to see if I can make a better determination of available space. For all I know it might turn out to be a snug fit and all I might end up needing is a piece of foam rubber between the head liner and the back of the buttons assembly. If not then I'll see about perhaps fiber glassing in some mounting brackets similar to what I did on the 2 TV Dash underside.

I also created a piece of plastic black trim for over top of the buttons to make them look a little more finished. The plastic came from the top of an old VCR/DVD combo unit that no longer worked so I scrapped it for parts and the plastic shell or housing has come in handy for little projects like this. Once the buttons are secured in place I'll simply Contact Cement this plastic trim to the outer edge of the buttons assembly.

I can't wait to get the other switches for the upper console.... figuring out what to wire all of the various buttons up to is going to be fun ;)