Headunit and 3 gauge center dash mod

[JustJeff]

I never liked how low DIN gauge panels sat on the center dash. So while moving all my parts from the old turbo vert to the soon to be turbo vert I decided to make some changes.

After pulling out the OEM headunit I saw that the mounting brackets are screwed onto the OEM headunit. That seemed like an awesome and easy starting point. I mounted my Eclipse HU onto the OEM bracket but on the lowest DIN spot. It worked alright, but the HU sat way too far forward for my taste. Measuring showed that it extended about 20mm out from the center dash cover. It also sat a little too low. I was concerned the little plastic outer trim for the Eclipse wouldn't fit.

So, I measured 5mm up and 20mm back and drilled and dremeled new screw holes. The height was right on, but the HU sat too far back and sunken in. So I dremeled each hole into a slot so I could adjust depth for the HU. IIRC the most forward the modded hole would allow is 10mm. So with the slot I made I can mount the HU anywhere from 10-20mm forward/back.

Here is how it mounts after moving it up 5mm and creating the slot.


Here are the brackets mounted just as they should be...only with my HU. BTW the black wire coming down is my common ground for the headunit and antenna relay. Once the gauges are installed I'll ground them all from one common ground. It grounds to the shifter top bracket. I took the top driver side bolt out, then slid the ring terminal under the bracket and bolted it back down.


One side with the slot. Again 5mm up and 20-10mm forward and back


Not a very good pic of the opposite side. That side does not mount as well because a tab on the OEM bracket created a large opening. Once its all done I'll use a longer screw with a washer on it so that it mounts better.


I measured the inside of the center dash cover and cut a cardboard template. The vertical lines on either side of the DIN opening are where the sheet metal will bend. I'll create a few more screw holes and use plastic bushings to secure the front panel to the OEM bracket.


Trace the DIN opening onto the metal panel and cut and grind it down.


Marked center for height and width and drew the gauge openings.


The panel DIN fitted to the HU


Template mounted. Glad I did that before cutting the gauge holes. The template is a couple mm off-center to the passenger side.


That's all I have so far. I'm off all weekend with a bad toe and neck so hopefully I'll finish this little project by Monday. Once the metal front panel is done I'll cover it in black vinyl of some sort or possibly have it powder coated black (if I catch the powder coater before they do my engine parts)

[djmtsu]

Looks familiar......


I had one of the DIN/Gauge mounts that 1FasT2 built. He only made about 50, so it was rare. I sold it to a guy on here actually, and FerociousP has one too.

It was a little different though. It mounted to the stock headunit's 4 screws, and then the stereo mounted to it.

[JustJeff]

I remember those floating around a while back. That's where I got the idea to make one. I didn't get much done over the weekend. I found some black brushed aluminum in storage. It's left over from cutting a window into my computer case. I may start over and use that.

[mazdadude7]

i want this! i dont need but one gauge pod and then i am gonna cut out for my turbo timer

[djmtsu]

The ones that 1FasT2 made were just laser cut, pre-bent aluminum, natural finish.

To make it match the interior, I used flat black paint, and then out down a thick layer of clear coat. Looked PERFECT!

[mazdadude7]

im gonna powder coat mine :P

[Pete_89T2]

Jeff - you've inspired me to mod my existing setup. I currently have the gauges mounted on the bottom, and am using a home-modified Crutchfield radio install kit to mount my HU & gauges. I still have my stock HU mounting brackets, so this should work for me too. One question though - can you elaborate on how you secured the front panel to the HU brackets? If I understand correctly, you bent boths sides of the panel back 90* (at the lines), then screwed them to the HU brackets using some plastic stand-offs to fill the gaps?

Only problem I know I'm going to have doing this mod is getting the antenna to connect to my HU in the lower location. As it is, the JVC head unit I have doesn't have the "pigtail" type antenna connector, so I have less cable slack to work with - it just makes it as-is. Will probably need to find/make a 3~6 inch antenna patch cable.

[djmtsu]

Originally Posted by Pete_89T2

As it is, the JVC head unit I have doesn't have the "pigtail" type antenna connector, so I have less cable slack to work with - it just makes it as-is. Will probably need to find/make a 3~6 inch antenna patch cable.

I had the same issue with my Pioneer. Advance Auto Parts has a 3" extension, I think it was around $5.

[JustJeff]

Originally Posted by Pete_89T2

Jeff - you've inspired me to mod my existing setup. I currently have the gauges mounted on the bottom, and am using a home-modified Crutchfield radio install kit to mount my HU & gauges. I still have my stock HU mounting brackets, so this should work for me too. One question though - can you elaborate on how you secured the front panel to the HU brackets? If I understand correctly, you bent boths sides of the panel back 90* (at the lines), then screwed them to the HU brackets using some plastic stand-offs to fill the gaps?

Only problem I know I'm going to have doing this mod is getting the antenna to connect to my HU in the lower location. As it is, the JVC head unit I have doesn't have the "pigtail" type antenna connector, so I have less cable slack to work with - it just makes it as-is. Will probably need to find/make a 3~6 inch antenna patch cable.

YAY!! My mother would be so proud that I've inspired someone

I had the same thing going on with a plastic HU bracket and a cheapo 3 gauge DIN panel. The angle was so bad on the temp gauge that I had to turn it sideways for me to read the relevant numbers.


I haven't finished the project. The factory speakers were blown and distorting badly from just the Eclipse internal amp. I've got a total of 9 speakers to go in the car. I put 4 of them in with an amp. Now that I've got some basic tunes in the car I'll get back to the HU mod.

You've got it right on bending and using plastic spacers. But I'm starting over. I used snips to cut the 22ga metal. I expected the snips to leave an uneven cut, but was planning to hide the mangled cut behind the center dash cover. I'm not sure that it'll end up covered so there might be some uneven waivering surface showing.

One other reason is I found some leftover thicker gauge aluminum from cutting a window in my computer case. It's thick enough that I could use a jigsaw to cut and would end up with nice edges.

One thing I might be changing with the re-do is I might keep the gauge faceplate separate from the HU. The HU sits back pretty far and if I cut a DIN opening for the HU then the entire faceplate needs to match that depth. If I cut the faceplate above the HU then I can play with the depth of gauge panel.

[JustJeff]

Finally got around to doing more with this. I started over with the black aluminum panel. I did it double DIN and that made it so much easier.

A little tape to help protect the surface and keep it pretty. It's also very useful cause I had a surface to write on and make notes.


The notches up top are for the screws on the bracket. I used a 2" hole cutter drill bit thingie. The middle one skipped and cut into the panel. It's not terribly noticeable once it's in the car. I'll probably just touch it up with some flat black paint.


One important thing...if I had made the outer gauges any further out the mounting bracket would not have fit. What I did for spacing them...well beyond simply measuring was this. I mounted the bracket and mounted the center dash molding and traced the edges so I knew what area I had to work with. I did it because the gauge panel does not sit quite even on the headunit bracket. If I measured end to end of the gauge panel the holes would not have been centered once it was in the car.


There it is mounted. I still need to touch up the scrapes and actually wire in gauges...but that can wait till I'm installing the rebuilt engine.

[infernosg]

Originally Posted by djmtsu

Looks familiar......


I had one of the DIN/Gauge mounts that 1FasT2 built. He only made about 50, so it was rare. I sold it to a guy on here actually, and FerociousP has one too.

It was a little different though. It mounted to the stock headunit's 4 screws, and then the stereo mounted to it.

That would be me

I'm actually in the process of playing with its install now. I'm curious how you guys are supporting the radio from behind. I purchased the car with an afternarket radio already installed but from what I could tell it wasn't anchored to anything.

[JustJeff]

Mine isn't anchored to anything in the back. Its mounted on the front two screws on OEM bracket and that's it. I haven't had any problems with CDs skipping so I've left it. IF I wanted to I could drill two holes and have the OEM mount on two rear screws. But those are on the sides not the rear of the HU.

[djmtsu]

I used a small section of that bendy metal strip with holes in it......yeah.

I just put a bolt through the back of the stereo (most have one threaded hole) and then angled/adjusted the bendy bracket to rest on the bottom of the inside of the dash. It never moved, and never skipped!

[JustJeff]

The HU has gotten buggy since I put the gauges in. It'll do random odd things. Yesterday it started scanning thru the CD track. Then it took time to respond to buttons. Then it got stuck scanning and I couldn't power it off without turning the car off. I took the HU out and it might have been warmer than it should have been...though I've never compared heat levels. With the HU out but wired in it no longer was buggy. Today on the way home from work it again got buggy. I didn't give it much time and powered it off for fear of doing heat damage.

I think what's going on is that the spaghetti wires combined with the 3 gauges isn't giving the HU enough air to breath and cool. What is strange is that the HU shouldn't be using it's internal amp for anything...well unless it's always on/off with the HU. I have the speaker outputs wired into the factory harness. BUT the only output that is being used is for the headrest speakers and they are powered by the OEM amp and controls. I have an external amp for the door components. I haven't added any other speakers or amps yet. So all the HU for speaker power should really be doing is providing an on/off for the OEM headrest amp.

None of this happened until I put the gauges in. So it's either ironic timing for the HU to give out, or I need to move some of the wiring around. I've got the antenna relay in with the rest of harnesses.

First thing I'll do is get that out of there and mount it under the dash somewhere.

After that my next option is that one of the models of Eclipse came with a fan. My heatsink on the back is machined for a tiny fan complete with screwholes. I'll measure and get a fan and simply have it always on/off with the HU.

One other thing didn't hit me till I was on the way home from work. This vert has a history of creating LOTS of ambient heat from the drivetrain. It was my father's vert before I bought it from him. While my father owned it we've needed to replace the shifter boot 3-4 times. And you can feel the heat coming from the shifter opening, the transmission tunnel and in the lower dash. Much more heat than my previous two verts, or his current vert.

What I'm thinking is that he must be missing some of the heat shielding under the car. Though it's 100% OEM except for a RB exhaust and the HU that I just recently installed. Only thing I can think is that it's got a Mazda reman'd engine. Perhaps the dealership, for whatever reason didn't put heat shields back on the transmission tunnel?

It can't be a previous owner because my father has owned the car since 1991ish. The only thing done to the car other than routine maintenance is the reman'd engine and a paint job.

[Pete_89T2]

Resurrecting an old thread... As I said before, Jeff's writeup inspired me to try this gauge mounting setup in my FC. 7 months later I finally had the time to do it! Previously I had my gauges in the empty DIN slot under the radio. Basically followed Jeff's general plan for flip-flopping them, by reusing the stock radio mount brackets and some hefty sheet metal I recycled from an old computer case to fabricate the panel. Started with some cardboard to make a template, and played with that till I was happy with the test fit. Then went to work recreating the template in metal. After some work with the jigsaw, hole saw and a bit of metal bending later, I got the gauge panel you see here.

Here's a picture of the panel, mounted with stock brackets, my JVC head unit & gauges test fit:

100_1012.jpg

Lucky for me, the front threaded holes on my HU that lined up perfectly with holes already in the stock bracket, and they put the thing at just the right depth when test fit in the car, so I didn't have to resort to making slotted holes as Jeff did for the in & out adjustment. Just drilled a 2nd hole in each bracket (to get 2 screws per side for strength) that line up with another existing threaded hole in the head unit. Here's a pic that shows the screws:

100_1013.jpg

And here's how it looks test fit in the car, without the console surround piece:

100_1014.jpg

And now with the surround piece:

100_1015.jpg

If the gauges look crooked, it's because I didn't bother to line them up perfectly and fully tighten the U-clamps on the back. I made the holes a wee bit oversize to provide a bit of adjustability. Now I just need to finish it, because I don't like the shiny metal look. Either going to paint it satin black to match the interior, or I might cover it with some black vinyl I have leftover from another project (DIY hatch cargo cover) that is a perfect match for my leather interior.