Trying to make a sleeper and find a good way to hide gauges while keeping a stock looking dash.
heres my idea
so it would pretty much be a piece of plastic molded like the dash-then when its time to mess around you take it out to revel gauges
That would be pretty cool, I havnt seen a motorized version of one there. Just another idea is to ditch your cigarette lighter and put one in its place there. Ive seen some there before, although it is not the best of placement for viewing.
Dave
Yea I have thought of doing the whole cigarette lighter thing but I need enough space for three and Pillar gauge pods have never been my style. a motorized version would be interesting!
amazingly i like it. i'd be pretty impressed if you could pull it off.
good luck and good idea.
Motorized would be sweet. Maybe hooked up so when you take off the e-brake the gauges are revealed? It would take alot more work than making a cover (which would still take a decent amount of work to look good), but it would definetely be unique.
If you choose to go without the motor, I suggest making the lid sort of flip up or down and behind the gagues rather than just being taken off and thrown to the side. It will look better, and will prevent the lid from getting damaged/lost whenever you remove it.
I dunno about you guys, but i have my gauges mounted there so i can see how my vital engine systems are working while driving not to advertise that i drive a modded car.
its an old concept. time for something new to take the reigns. - Z yaaaa
I think it's a cool idea, but it needs to NOT say "cavalier" on the cover, that would be better IMO
"A car just isn't a car without a little blood, sweat, and beers." -- Shadowfire
Matt Linke wrote:I think it's a cool idea, but it needs to NOT say "cavalier" on the cover, that would be better IMO
Yea the cavalier in the middle was just an idea i threw out there. When I do it i"m thinking of painting it to match the stock dash color and texture which may mean repainting the whole dash insert piece.
Tinkles wrote:I dunno about you guys, but i have my gauges mounted there so i can see how my vital engine systems are working while driving not to advertise that i drive a modded car.
Trust me I'm not the kind of person to show off or brag that I have a modded car or this or that. This concept is to do the opposite, find a way to hide gauges while parked and to try and keep a stock look and still be able to monitor engine while driving. IMO its just as much work to mod something and make it look factory then too go crazy with custom work. I have an extreme appreciation for both!! modified stock is just my style.
sndsgood wrote:guys used to do that to there headunits, we would take the stock headunit, cut the face off, and then use it as a cover to hide our aftermarket headunits. same concept. could be easily done really.
Wow I've never heard of that before. Wish I knew about that a few years ago
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sndsgood wrote:guys used to do that to there headunits, we would take the stock headunit, cut the face off, and then use it as a cover to hide our aftermarket headunits. same concept. could be easily done really.
I made a unit in my shop class for a final years ago that incorperated a vcr meconism to raise/lower a head unit.
With the car on, the head unit would raise up to normal position, turn the car off and it would drop into the dash and a cover would hide the hole.
Worked ok in my DSM as its double din and had the room for the radio to drop down.
"Oil Leak ? What oil Leak ? Oh, Thats Just The Sweat From All The HorsePower!!"
yeah this was back in the day when you just had a cd slot. before all the video units. so you could just cut a cd in half, glue it to the back of your fake headunit and then when u wanted to hid it you just slide the cd into the headunit to hold it in place.
there was also a company that made a install kit that opened and closed as dsm above mentioned. pretty cool but needed a bigger opening and a deep deapth to be able to mount it.
oh yeah
unit!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sndsgood/ https://www.facebook.com/#!/Square1Photography
DSMskyline wrote:sndsgood wrote:guys used to do that to there headunits, we would take the stock headunit, cut the face off, and then use it as a cover to hide our aftermarket headunits. same concept. could be easily done really.
I made a unit in my shop class for a final years ago that incorperated a vcr meconism to raise/lower a head unit.
With the car on, the head unit would raise up to normal position, turn the car off and it would drop into the dash and a cover would hide the hole.
Worked ok in my DSM as its double din and had the room for the radio to drop down.
wow super good idea, I was shying away from the motorized cover because I couldn't decide how to accomplish it. This gives me new light, lol.
props for innovative ideas!
would this mean I would have to put the unit into dash before the whole unit would work correctly as a one cohesive unit, J/k
make it a flip down, i like this idea!
