Hello, I just joined the forums and wanted to post how I'm building an underdash radio housing for a customer's 1953 Chevrolet truck. While it's not completely finished, I will add pictures to the below link as they are taken. I wanted to design a way to mount a new style radio to where when it is in the up position you cannot see hardly anything. I sent an e-mail to another member on this site but I would like to get another factory cowl vent underdash arm to replace the arm that is on the underdash housing now to make it more finished. Comments are welcome. http://community.webshots.com/album/562996104vjFSTd?vhost=community Thanks, Jim Streib
Welcome, Jim, You did good. You gave us your name and photos! I can't wait to see the end result. Thanks for the thread. Gater
Radio Box Hi Jim ; First & foremost you've gotta add a rain shield as the DPO of my '49 did this and the first time it got washed , a $3,000.00 stereo went up in smoke.... As far as the cowl venilator , I've seen a few done up with an electric screwjack....
Good points. When I was looking under the dash I was suprised a design like this was ever done for a cowl vent. The customer too, remarked he had forgotten more than once that the vent was open while washing it and got the interior wet. I was thinking about a screw type actuator but I finished an install of one on a 56 Chevrolet that was meant to open the trunk and the car was built with the cart in front of the horse in a lot of respects and when they were trying to get the weatherstrip and the trunk channel to fit right they kept opening and closing the trunk with the screw actuator and it burned up. Looking at the directions it was only made to work for so long and then have a cooling or rest time before working again. That might not come into play in real life, but you never know if you wanted to show things off. I wanted to keep it somewhat simple in the workings on the drop down housing and like anything else, the more elaborate it is, the more things that could go wrong. Thanks for the input. Jim
Is this being done to keep from chopping up the dash or to keep a high dollar radio out of sight? (Or both). Am waiting for the finished job. If it's going to have a/c I think I'd try to talk the customer into sealing the cowl vent, could save a lot of bucks in damage.
The customer was going to order a radio from Custom Autosound but wasn't sold on the look of it. He wants to keep the truck somewhat clean looking and we bounced idea's off of each other and decided on an underdash mount. He wasn't 100% sold on having something just hanging under the dash like so many others have done but after he saw some of the work by having it hinge up, he told me to keep on going. He had ordered some ABS type kick panels with speakers in them but after looking at them I found out they are sealed back midranges. Another problem with them is they just don't fit no matter what trimming you would do to them. They say they fit, but it's beyond me how they would. The customer then gave me the OK to built some of my own and while I have the passenger side going with a larger speaker and one that will be a full range, I've not sold myself on the looks. The pod looks too late model to me. I'm kicking around some idea's to make it look like something done in the 50's. Maybe grills in them like what is below the factory radio cutout ?. I just haven't given it much thought yet. Luckily the customer's not in a rush and we can figure things out as we go. Just like the radio housing, there are things I probably should have done differently but there's always the next one to make better. I added some more pictures tonight to my link above as to where I'm at so far. I doubt I will get much further this week as I have to finish some jobs at Grant's Farm and get ready to go to Memphis for Super Chevy this weekend. Jim
Off topic but I have a friend with a 1974 SOA Nova. He can be seen here. http://www.theautolog.com/7t4soa-1 On topic I made a center consol that goes from the bottom of the dash to the floor. It holds my stereo and XM radio. I plan on fiberglassing it and painting it to match the dash. You can kind of see my experiment in wood in this picture. I haven't fiber glassed it yet because I'm going to re do it now that I have an idea what I'm doing.
