Did this a few months ago and have finally got around to posting it.
A few good consoles to buy out there, but I wanted something that kept well above the wind screen, only really need somewhere to put the UHF radio and my glasses. Since I sold the DiscoII I have sat on and otherwise destroyed at least three sets of glasses.
So step one, strip out the hood lining, sound proof the ceiling and line with marine carpet
Pretty much followed bushman83's method.
Taking out the hood lining lets me get the edge of the console right up against the windscreen.
Used Ally (2mm) as I've not long bought a TIG welder and well why not.
Below are two of the three pieces that I started with.
The top pic is the shelf, and bottom Pic is the box for the radio.
In the top pic you can see the edge of failure No 1
In the bottom pic you can see the scollop marked out for the rear view mirror as I didn't relocate this.
As the console is to sit above the line of the windscreen the edge of the shelves have to be rolled down at the ends, the console will be supported at the ends be screwing into the inside gutters.
Above, starting the roll, the bar is 40mm
Above, roll pretty much finished, pic doesn't show dropped clamps on feet, stuck fingers and endless cursing.
Shows finished shelf, this is the passengers side shelf and is sitting upside down
Scollops at front right is to make enough room to still use grab handles that I have installed on the inside gutter
Welded up the Radio box, still getting the hang of welding Al so the grinder helps hide a few sins.
Tab in the middle will be used to support the middle of the console, drilled into the centre roof beam once it was all welded together and used a nutsert in the roof beam.
Shows angle temp attached to radio box, angle is used to fix the shelf to the radio box and is removed after welding up.
So fitted up the shelves, they mount in the same holes that the sunvisor mounts into, drill and screw the end of the shelves into the gutters above the doors
Making sure they're level
Once I got the shelves level, marked the gap for the Radio box and cutout the shelves fit the radio box.
Here the radio box is sitting on the shelves supported by the temp angles screwed onto the side of the radio box. Once every thing is lined up I screwed the shelves to this angle, so everthing was held in place ready for welding
Welding up the rolled ends and the shelves to the radio box.
Rolled ends, welded outside and inside.
Gotta love electric files
Welded up shelves to Radio box, inside an out
In the last photo you can see the two hole in the bottom of the radio box for mounting up the Radio, I have an Aldi radio and couldn't get a DIN box for it so used the original U bracket to mount it in the box
Also you can see the three holes in the shelf area where the shelf was attached to the box with the temp angle.
Didn't plug them as the whole thing is going to be carpeted
Top Tip, plastic Irwin clamps melt pretty quickly when welding AL
Cleaned the welded console down with wet and dry ready for contact adhesive for covering in marine carpet.
Sorry, too shiny to get a good photo.
Above shows carpeted console from back, radio is installed, have riveted angles along the "back" of the shelf to stop things rolling into the space above the windscreen.
Have made a wooden facia just to tidy the radio up.
Had to cut about 25mm off the end of each sun-visor, and will get them recovered eventually.
Yet to install a "pod" behind the radio box, will be the same width as the radio box and go back about three to four hundred mm. This will tidy up the gap between the radio box and the roof and also take a better interior light. Probably use the same sort of lights that Bushman83 used.
Have taken a lot of info from this site and benefited greatly, hopefully this is post is giving a little back
So made a pod as mentioned a year ago to carry map lights and few bits.
These show the inside of the pod.
The white donuts are used to space the pod the correct distance from the roof.
The furniture bolts are adjusted to make it level as the center fixing doesn't give it much strength from side to side.
The pod is mounted to the roof by installing nutserts into the central beam and using booker rod right thru from the bottom.
Holes are for the various lights, switches, voltmeters and USB outlets.
.
Last edited by Dorian; 3rd January 2016 at 05:50 PM.
Reason: Spelling
This is the drivers side
Two volt meters , one for the main battery taken off the acc circuit, the other for the house battery system. There is also a USB outlet, runs off the house battery and a map light. Right up the front, you can also see the LED for the coolant level alarm which I bought from Dave's interesting things.
This is the back of Pod
Two map reading lights for the back and their switches below them. The switch in the middle is to turn off the power to the rear interior lights so when I jump in the drivers seat and realize they are still on, I can kill them from the front.
The map reading lights come from an Aircraft kit supplier MINIATURE EYEBALL COCKPITLIGHT - GREEN from Aircraft Spruce - mine are the white LED as I don't seem to be able to see much detail on a map with a red light.
Passenger side
USB charger and Map readign light. I replaced the existing interior light with this unit from Narva (?), had to wait a few months to get a grey unit.
Cheers Glen
Last edited by Dorian; 3rd January 2016 at 06:10 PM.
Reason: Spelling
Top of the pod, showing the wiring.
Shows the wiring, made plugs up as it would be a mite difficult to install if it were hard wired and getting the 20 or so individual connections right if I had to take it out would be impossible. These are bog std automotive plugs from Repco, used heat shrink to tart it all up. The cig socket runs the dash-cam and came with the unit, the cords were too hard to furgle the sockets out of. Broke the plugs up into two groups, the top handles all of the furgling I did with the original wiring , interior lights etc. The bottom plug handles all of the stuff I added, map lights, USB point and volt meters. The coolant level alarm sensor was wired thru the bottom plug eventually.
The finished item
The large hole in the center is lined with a loop of carpet, this keeps the mess of wires at bay. I use it to store all of the leads I find I need to keep on me now days. Nothing heavy as I don't want missiles flying around at head height. Because the USB in on the house battery, it's a handy place to put your phone on to charge when your are parked up as it's hard to see if your looking to nick stuff.
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