Ok,

I have seen some totally awesome mods done in the center dash or radio bezel or whatever you would like to call it on this site. BUT, they are scattered through out the site, and are not really searchable, since they may or may not be in a post where they are mentioned. So.o.o.o.o.o... I thought I would start a thread where folks can post their use of this area of their truck.

To start it off, here is one I did. The PO (a 19 year old kid) had hacked the holy howling you know what out of the bezel, the hole was to tall and too wide to mount a DIN stereo in. So, I bought an install kit for a 1.5 DIN car (89 Olds 98), and cut the hole a bit bigger and epoxied the mount in. Never have had a chance to go back and grind/sand it smooth. Maybe this coming winter I can get to it.




Sorry for the slightly fuzzy pic, I never realized until I moved it to the computer from my phone it was out of focus.

Anyone else have anything? Gauges in here? GPS? A Super Computer? LOL!

Cheers!

 

I thought about a set of mini gauges above the radio. But when I took it apart, and saw all the metal back there, I rethunk that idea.... Just an XLT emblem from a newer Ranger.

 

I was wondering why your XLT looked better than mine! looks nice!

On my 81, the one I did the double din repair above on, the stuff behind the radio panel was plastic...I trimmed it out in a couple minutes with my dremel. Here is a couple pics:




After cutting it, but before final cleanup.<br/>




Before.

 

Does anybody have a pic of an 80-84 style bezel cut out to fit a DIN radio? I'm afraid to mess up the cutting job

 

Mine is all apart now but here's what it looked like when I bought the truck.



The PO's handiwork. Notice the "ouch" in the upper right corner
Why he chose to mount the USB so far away from the driver's position is beyond me.

 

Thank you Don!

 

Here's how mine is, from the factory. Still works too!

 

I trimmed my JY replacement bezel to accept the same single DIN audio unit but, the woodgrain trim is being replaced with faux horizontal stainless sheeting to match the instrument cluster bezel and door panel speaker trim panels that i have completed. The three "dead" panels at the top will house black 30a horizontally mounted rocker switches to control auxiliary lighting such as road lamps, clearance lamps and under dash/under seat "floor fog lighting" to mist the floor in faint light. I'm changing the interior color from blue to two/tone black and gray with stainless accents so i'm thinking purple accent lighting will look slick, but i can change the colors at will using color programmable LED rope lighting.. What comes to mind is : Measure twice, and cut once.

 

...mine's a keeper.

 

Awesome! I would really like to see a picture of that when you are done...and the other parts too of course!

The floor lighting like that, I have always called Kenworth floor lights. Other brands have done it, but they did it consistantly, and it was faint, but bright enough to see a fair number of items if you dropped something...of course with my luck, I usually dropped something that would not show up! lol

 

my old dash before I swapped to a 95 f250 one. the previous owner did the black spray job and broke almost everything. I added the switch panel and rewired the entire truck since this pic. and it is functional

 

I dig it! Was that basically a prerunner style switch setup? Start, Ignition, lights, etc?

 

Yep, I wanna see that one as well.

 

Maybe the co-pilot was in charge of the tunes? lol!

If it had been me, I would have put it right near the stereo, since I already had that panel out.

 

Went out and took a non fuzzy picture! lol