Headunit and 3 gauge center dash mod

[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.