Okay after a little bit more looking there's actually almost no curvature on the bezel. Talked to my roommate, he has a 3d printer that can print up to 8x8 and thinks it should be something very doable for him to do. He hasn't actually really gotten the thing fully setup and really printed anything with it so he's actually kind of stoked to try this out so he has a good excuse to get it up and running. If we figure something out with the 3d printer then of course I will share the files on this. Also once I get a proper sized hole cut in the bezel I can make a paper template to scan so that people can easily replicate that part since that would probably be the trickiest part of getting a clean finish. This also allows me to make the piece coming out from the back of the bezel and sticking out with a little flang that you can bond to the bezel which should help a lot with stability.

Okie dokie smookie... I observe this project. I get it..you go.

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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.

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.

Well decided to mess around in tinkercad (never used it before but I have a lot of experience with 3d modeling software so didn't take too long to figure it out). Have what I think is a halfway decent rough draft for the part I want to print based off measurements and actually holding the part up to my screen to try and figure out the angle lol (appears to be damn close to 35*).



This is essentially a front facing view of the part. Those lips will catch the back side of the bezel and that bottom piece should rest almost perfectly on top of the cup holder on one side. Sides and top are 1/4" and bottom is 3/8". Then I would just epoxy it into place and maybe add some pieces of metal for more rigidity if I think it's needed which I suspect it won't, we will see. Also I know basically nothing about 3d printing so I'm not even sure if this is a shape that will print easily lol.

I've dabbled in 3d printing before, it looks simple enough to print, whatever printer you use would just need to add supports to hold up the top part

I’ve sware I’ve seen moving the radio up to where the heater controls are but not all the way to the top.


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Nice! Do you still plan to use the Atoto HU?

Looks like it's the only HU that fits the criteria I'm looking for and is not a mystery company with non-existent CS or would cost me an arm and a leg for the same functionality so ye I'm still going with the Atoto. It's sitting in my save for later in my amazon cart. Also have an outside temp display, vents and a flush mount USB port sitting in there. I think this might end up with a really clean look without having learn how to do fiberglass. Might use some interior trim paint too to keep everything color matching. Also thinking about putting a midland GMRS in the ashtray slot. The ideas on this are snowballing too. I'm figuring while I have all the interior trim apart to do the backup cam to I'm going to prewire and plumb for onboard air and might do some sound proofing.