Project phase: Concept - Planning - Ordering - Installation - Tuning - Complete

My last stereo was stolen back in August, 2004. When the crooks took the head unit, they took the bezel and spare compartment/DIN filler and mounting bracket all as one piece. My first photos (will) show the cavity in my center console. Until I received this Pioneer head unit for Christmas, I had my old factory stereo just plugged in and laying in the hole. So, I decided to make new brackets and a bezel for my new stereo. I did the majority of this work in the dead of winter, in the dark, with a flashlight, in the evenings, after work. (Check out that string of prepositional phrases!)

So, it's obvious in the photos that the stereo's face is a little too far to the left. What you probably can't tell is that it's also angled a tad more toward the driver, making it less flush with the bezel on the left side of the cut-out. It is also mounted at a very minute vertical angle so that it is not perpendicular to the bezel. It may just be a product of the misalignment, but I notice it nonetheless. While this bezel will work for now, I think I'm going to end up reshaping the mounting brackets and cutting a new bezel. The bezel could use nearly a centimeter more on its left edge anyway (as you can clearly see the L-bracket behind the bezel). At least I now have a solid template from which to work.

If I do remake it, I'd like to also build in an LCD screen behind the Lucite and leave that area unpainted so the LCD would be hidden until it was turned on. I'd connect the LCD and some push buttons in the bezel to a computer running DAMP. I've wanted a permanent, in-car MP3 storage solution since back before I had my first MP3 CD player.

I hope someone appreciates my use of standard PC chasis screws. Imagine how easy it would be to take things apart to work on them if the screws weren't tucked away with odd insertion angles. More photos and full-sized versions of these photos are here in my gallery.