Project número uno: Tex's 8-track...

[Tex Arcana]

Waaal, it be tahm tuh instawl dat dar new ray-deee-oh!!

I wuz wantin' me one of dem dar aight-tracks; but dem damn fokkers at da Beast Buy warnt gonna co-ooper-ate none!!!

Of course, all of this was happening back in March (hey, I been BUSY!!), and the very first moment when I went to move my truck around to the garage, IT WAS FOKKING DEAD!! I had been keeping the battery alive for a few months now with a power-point solar charger; but I forgot to plug it in over the weekend (I had some vacation I was using), and it was mega-dead. So, after unsuccessfully trying to jump it, I yanked it and took it to the nearest Interstate Battery locale, to get this nice little result:

Place was so new, they didn't even have their registers fully set up:

:lol:

So, new battery in, truck around back, let's prep the garage:

"bench" set up (old steel/laminate table top on a pair of sawhorses), having to fix the damn new chinee-knockoff "dremel"

Got the retracting power cord and work light set up too:

Excellent lighting is a must!!

As are good glasses for us olde fartes who have "long-arm disease":

Let's not forget the über-useful and absolutely necessary Weller Porta-Sol kit--21 years old and counting:

 

[Tex Arcana]

Now the disassembly...

Note the somewhat-gutted dash:

Mother puss bucket: talk about major flakage going on!! :

Well, fsck that shyt, off it goes for later repair action:

And off comes the radio support:

Dash thoroughly gutted:

 

[Tex Arcana]

Back to the bench...

The support, in all it's understated glory:

And the faux-dremel, ready to go, after having to repair it with plastic-welding methodology--bend the strain-spring and the underlying spiral support so it melts into the plastic hand holds it together, "welding" it with the Weller torch tip:

You can just see the weld joint, it held together during this whole job:

...and the A.D.D. kicks in... I saw the dash panel behind the faux-dremel, and just HAD to check it out!!

Holy sheet, look at it!!

Fscking Ford quality, I thought you were better!! :angst::

Fokkin'-a... That'll be another upcoming project... :devious:

:blink:

 

[Tex Arcana]

Okay, back to work...


Sorry about the sheettay iPwn pics, I really had no idea they were bad til waaaay too late.

So, new and old... See the problem?

Motherfokker, this is gonna be a bytch... And I've made shyt fit in places no one thought would actually fit!!

I definitely wanted to make sure this rear support is put to use:

It's not even remotely close to the one on the new unit (just above the wiring harness):

"Juuuuust a bit outside!"

Gonna be interesting how I manage this:

And the bezel fit... ain't:

It's gonna be alot of work...

 

[Tex Arcana]

Some test fits to get an idea what to do...

(Sorry about the huge pics, I'll do thumbs from now on out)

Test fit with radio dash panel:

It looks like it's gonna fit okay in the panel opening:

A little wide here, I'll have to figure a way to address this:

I've got one of the included trim panels in here, it doesn't quite work:

Hmmm...

 

[Tex Arcana]

So, time to chop on the dash...

Old upper support panel dremeled out (with a REAL 40-odd-y.o. Dremel, that I found in a garage sale for $6 ):

Space cleared, you can see where the rear radio support bracket bolted into the ductwork/dash:

Time to chop on the front support, let's not forget the eye protection, 'cuz, y'know, I LIKE my eyes?

Cutting the top part back:

And cut, nice and clean:

Aaaalllmost, but not quite:

After taking off some on the bottom edge of the support, it's a better fit:

 

[Tex Arcana]

And now the radio sleeve, I decided I wanted it so it would not only help support it, it would enable me to remove it easily with the supplied special tools:

Looks good so far:

So to secure the sleeve to the front support, I used a couple random rubber isolators from who-knows-what as vibration isolation, with a couple coarse-thread sheetrock screws driven thru the plastic (with a minimal pilot hole) and the metal:

Turns out the screws will go into the a/c ductwork--not a bad thing, kinda helps pull it all together into a well-supported unit:

Mounted in support:

 

[Tex Arcana]

Now the rear support...


Here's a candidate: stamped aluminum gridding:

How can I make the rear support bearing work?

Okay, seems stiff enough and strong enough, holes drilled where the rear support on the radio goes, as well as a lower bolt hole:

But, to no avail: the aluminum it waaay too brittle, it made cracking sounds during bending and forming, and pretty much fell apart when bent too much; imagine how fast it would've disintegrated under vibrations!

So I started looking for something better, and found some expanded steel mesh at work. I didn't get any pics during fabrication, but I cut a strip long enough to go up the back and over the top, and rolled the edges with a rod and a hammer for lateral stability, and ended up with this:

The middle bolt is grommeted, for vibration isolation, the lower one has a rubber washer behind it as well:

Combined with the back support on the radio and it's rubber isolator, it's a decent way to support the backside of the radio. I considered actually bolting the radio to the support, but that would be a major pain in the *** to remove:

I think that'll work:

 

[Tex Arcana]

Time for the install itself...

Wiring harness time:

Porta-Sol FTMFW!!!

Fokk yeah for the heat gun tip:

Quite a few pics are missing here, I was working very late on this and just plain forgot to take them. But, I hooked up the harness and radio, and tested the unit:

Yes, it works!! After tidying up the wiring and such, got it installed, including the GPS antenna, which will hide unde the dash binnacle panel:

You can see some of the rear wiring tucked up behind it as well.


A shot on my way to work the next day (boy, I was fokking tired!!):

The nav works too!

Bloody hell, this kind of work takes a ***king toll on me!!

There's a couple vids I've taken, I'll upload them when I get a chance. The SD card works as intended, except it skips occasionally :wtf: the iPhone connection actually somehow makes the music played (the EXACT same music) sound better, I have no ***king idea why, but it kinda torques me off. Also, the USB stick does the same thing as the SD card: not as good sound, skips occasionally. :shrug: The nav works like a champ; and the sound quality isn't quite what I was hoping, tho I can't decide if it's the stereo showing up the shytty speakers, or the unit just isn't that good; it doesn't have enough bass for me.


So that's project número uno... Project deux is next... :devious:

 

[Tex Arcana]

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Gb0Zn4VGc&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]Mah aight-track! - YouTube[/nomedia]

CDs sound decent, still doesn't handle the track transistions well, the discs need the 1-second gap to work right; I suspect the SD card media needs gaps at the beginning and end of the songs to control that issue too.

I like the controls and screens overall, the nav works like a champ, and readjusts well. The Brit girl voice is sexy as hell, too. :drool: Aight-track goes in the slot between the buttcheeks. <_<>_>

On these vehicles, the space is there already. I'm sure if I dug hard enough, I'd find a properly molded bit that replaces the stock one, with the right sized opening. The real problem, which I've dealt with in single-DIN installs in tighter dashes ('68 stang, three toyotas), was the backside and how the rear support pin is dealt with. As you can see, I kludged it somewhat; but I wanted a solid support back there, and doing it that way seemed the best way I had. Maybe I could have folded some sheet metal into a nice boxed structure, but I wanted it to be decently open for cooling back there (and I'm sorely tempted to drill a hole in the duct to point some air at the back of the unit.

Now wait til you see the dash refurb... :devious: