Swapping vents with a head unit.

[Rushthezeppelin]

As far as I know the two outside vents on the dash by each window get airflow in every air flow selection.

You are correct on that. I did a little experimentation and found that out. Basically if I do this mod I can put it on front only and it will act normal as front only but in every other setting all the front vents would get air, not just the side ones. This is no big deal at all though and nice to know I can retain the front only option even if it will kind of work differently. If I don't want air coming out of the center front vents then I just simply close them.

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

To update on this though I managed to pick up a 96-98 bezel from Clearock (holy smokes his project is awesome, I won't spoil anything though unless he wants me to). He helped me with an issue I was having with my whiteline bushings and while I was out there he offered to see if he had a bezel for me to use for this. Turns out he had a base model with no clock bezel (never even knew this existed lol) so I've got my donor for my project. Almost kind of like the no clock thing as I can custom cut it for an outside temp monitor. That and I don't have to take anything off my current bezel so it will probably be easier to flip it when I take it off.

Getting to really hold it in my hand I definitely see this as doable. The cupholder slot is quite sturdy and should be able to easily support a lighter double din. I'm leaning right now towards the Atoto F7WE. Doing a double din will probably require me to try my hand at the fiberglass stuff or I could be lazy and just not cover it lol. Still trying to figure out what I want to do for cameras. I did manage to find one that actually advertised "shockproof" that has some really good reviews (although none of them assessing the ruggedness) but I'm not sure it works with any other head units besides their own. Amazon.com

Once I get a head unit in then I can start the fab work though which really shouldn't be much. Cut the vent up a tad bit, I'm leading towards cutting down that way I can possibly get the brackets for the double din resting right on the cupholder. I'm kind of wanting to speed up the timeline on the project too as my alpine single din head unit is acting really finicky lately on connecting to my phone and the mic went out ><

 

[Ed_C]

That headunit looks like a good bang-for-the-buck.

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

That headunit looks like a good bang-for-the-buck.

Not taking credit on that. Seems like many on here have had really good luck with Atoto, not only with the product but surprisingly good customer service for a Chinese company. I asked them some questions about this head unit and they just got back to me in a day and a half to answer them. Probably going to pull the plug and grab it here soon.

 

[Twisted Sid]

I have an older Atoto A7 head unit in my daily driver and other than it being a bit slow from not enough RAM, I have no issues with it. Probably going to pick up a newer version soon for the DD and put this one in my pickup or 4runner

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

Might have to change plans slightly here unless I want some heavy fab work. So I took off my bezel and poked around a bunch thinking of ideas and seeing if I still had a factory amp (and also seeing if my mic had come unplugged from the Alpine that I currently have, pretty sure it's just dead). The only way a double din works is if you have something low profile (like ideally no deeper than 1.5"-1.75") on the components in back of the head unit. The reason why is even if you cut all the way down to where the bezel curves in to the climate control faceplate you only get about 3.5" up till you start having to chop BOTH the top clips that hold the bezel in. I think with both of the examples they had low profile units that were 7" screens and they just built the shrouds to give it structural stability as much as for aesthetics. This would be a smidge trickier with a floating screen 10.1" double din unit like I'm looking at. Possibly doable but I would have to hack up the double din mount plates to clear going inside the bezel. Also that's a lot of fab work and I wonder how tricky it will be be to piece it all together.

I'm now leaning more towards this unit Amazon.com that is a 10.1" screen on a single din. The screen mount looks very sturdy (if I do buy it I will double check that sturdiness before I build this up so that I can return it and rethink things) so I don't think that will be an issue, plus I can adjust the screen up and down to my liking if I have any other clearance issues. As it stand the vent's are almost exactly the size of a single din anyway, only a half inch wider which I can easily work with. The price difference probably isn't a big deal if you factor in all the other stuff I would need for fabbing the double din. In fact I think I might be able to buy a single din plastic shroud and hack it up to the profile of the bezel and plastic weld or glue that on for a decently clean look (color probably won't match but I'm a bit ambivalent on that). I'll post pics in a sec here.

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

Here's the measurements I took.

As you can see not much room to work with and that's with partly cutting into the cupholder tray which will reduce the sturdiness of it.

Just cutting out the vent's however is really close to a great fit.

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

Drat, looks like all the plastic under dash mounting boxes are going to be just barely too wide for this, anyone have any ideas on that? I would love to find a seamless solution that would minimize any fabrication work. Seems like something like this Amazon.com would work perfect for anyone doing this on a 99-02 since you are relocating the buttons anyway. I'm going to double check with them what the dimensions of the box are though as I have about 8.25" inches to work with from the very edge of the hazard light to the inside edge of the bezel on the other side. It might JUST fit.

Amazon.com This one might even work better as it's tapered towards the back. Perhaps if it's the right size I could cut a din opening in the back and install this from the back. I keep some of that flang on there too to help with mounting.

 

[brillo_76]

Just put a single din where the factory radio is and call it good. That's what I am going to do. The screen can just hang out there.

Or a double din in the factory location and call it good...

It's not worth the hassle to move the vents.

Sent from my SM-A536V using Tapatalk

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

Just put a single din where the factory radio is and call it good. That's what I am going to do. The screen can just hang out there.

Or a double din in the factory location and call it good...

It's not worth the hassle to move the vents.

Sent from my SM-A536V using Tapatalk

IMO it's totally worth the hassle lol. I really don't want to have a navigation screen so out of my normal driving FOV. Also my plan is to also use this with one or two front facing cameras for spotting. The Atoto remote has buttons that you can switch between normal android auto screen, front view and back view very easily. Just have to find a video splicer if I want two front views. Going to try just one at first and see if guidelines match up pretty close to where my tires are for spotting purposes. Honestly though I'm having fun with this project and I'm just in the research phase. To each their own though, I actually find working on my truck relaxing in the grand scheme (even if I might get frustrated on individual parts of a job). If I can find a really straightforward way to do this without custom fabbing stuff then it would be nice to give to the community. Honestly if my ideas work out like I'm imagining someone could do this mod in probably 4 hours, if that, with clear instructions. I'm contemplating a 3d printed part too at this point, just have to find a way to get a an accurate measurement of the bezel curvature.

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

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.

 

[brillo_76]

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

Sent from my SM-A536V using Tapatalk

 

[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.

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

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.

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

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.

 

[RodrickHeffley]

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

 

[19963.4lsr5]

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


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ed_C]

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*).

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

 

[Rushthezeppelin]

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.

 

[snowkiid]

Any updates?

I’m in castle rock so not too far from littleton. This is a mod I have been following since you started the post. Just curious if you managed to succeed with it? And if so mind posting the final results?