Quote:
Originally Posted by heat
Just for navigation, it would probably be way cheaper, at least in terms of labor,
to put a mount on the A-pillar for a Garmin or TomTom unit for that in-your-
face location.
The radio bezel is not screwed down, and it's really carrying no weight. Any
head unit mounted to it is likely to rattle the bezel loose from the push tab
slots in the center stack (especially if driven off road), assuming it doesn't
break from the weight first.
It might be possible to build a metal HU mount that screws to the actual
radio or heat/ac control location. This could include a new mount for the
control, too. It could also be built in pieces or a smaller piece, rather than
one huge piece.
The heat/ac vent hoses could be a separate bezel, below the radio and heat/ac
control, for instance. Or the hoses could vent in the middle with the control
at the bottom in the original radio location. Then, yeah, some fiberglass
fabrication might be necessary, but the whole deal would be a lot stronger
than trying to rely on the bezel alone.
My problem (at least one of them) is I like the vents up high at the stock
location. I'm not sure putting them in the middle would work as well.
I don't have a picture for it yet, so I'll keep head-tripping it; I'd like a 10"
unit high enough to really see.
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Actually that's not true. There are two screws around the climate controls that hold the bezel quite securely and that is directly below the mounting location I'm looking at. This is easily the most sturdy part of the bezel especially on 96-98s because of the cupholder is well, that thing is stiff. At least one of the examples linked clearly offroaded a lot with his truck and I presume had no issues with a setup like this. Part of my plan as far as structural is possibly to have a structural member (piece of metal likely) coming down off the din mount to rest right on top of the climate controls (I'll probably put a piece of foam there so it doesn't rattle like crazy). Just not a fan of separate pieces of equipment for things like navigation. Having things be seamless as far as function appeals to me. If the absolute worst happen though I'm not really out much as I will still have my original bezel while I'm putting this things through it's paces and can swap back. I plan on probably just blocking the upper vent off with some foam and/or tape instead of hacking it apart so this whole thing should be fairly easily reversible (I would just cover the hole in the lower plenum to close that off). If this is successful though hopefully I will have figured out a way for others to ditch the annoying stock radio location without a ton of effort and still remain decently stock looking. As far as vent location I don't think I would mind that at all. One advantage I see to it is it will warm my shift knob on cold days. Perhaps I'm wrong though, we will find out lol.
