A while back I had made a post about center consoles.

This may be a kind of a long post...

So... grab some popcorn.

I bought my Excursion with a head unit that is capable of playing DVD's. I thought this would be great for my 3 kids to watch movies while on longer trips. I was all excited about this till I looked in the rear view mirror and found my 2 oldest girls leaned way out of position for the seatbelts to work properly.

Ok...no big deal, so I'll throw in a couple headrest monitors and be set. I did that, and found that I needed to Y the video feed from the head unit to the monitors. I grabbed a radio shack special Y adapter and hooked it up. This took the video quality down to absolute crap.

The other thing I had noticed was that there is a ton of dead space around the center console. I had plenty of accessories, and cables running aroundI had pulled it out to run the video feed and needed to move 22 DVD's from the console.

I hopped on Amazon to track down a video splitter/amplifier.

Amazon is a bad thing for me.... horrible....I start wandering around and find a bunch of different things that would be great to build into a custom center console. Including a complete Windows 10 computer that is the size of my Samsung Galaxy. For $130, I figured I'd give it a try. It's powered ironically off the same power cord as my cell phone.

So... that means I can make this computer run off my truck. That also means I can put DVD's onto a 256gig flash drive and carry every movie we own!

I got a few things right away, and started using the headrests. This gave me time to realize that there are family trips I don't want to hear How to Train Your Dragon for the 68849841th time. I'd like tunes.

Back on Amazon
I found a small amp, and talked with an Audio specialist at the dealership I work at. With a couple relays and a switch I can have the rear speakers run off that amp and i can keep my front speakers for the radio. Sounds like a win-win to me!


So.. I still have the option of running the DVD... or the computer....So I got 2 splitters... and switches...

Having the computer right there, I found a GPS puck that will give me a real GPS on the computer with Street Atlas 2015. I then had to figure out a way to have a screen for me to see.

I picked up a 9" screen and tried it. Luckly it was cheap, but... it was cheap. So.... I couldn't read the fonts to be able to function the computer or the GPS program properly.


That made me take a trip to Micro Center... another horribly wonderful place. But I NEVER get out of there for under $300....

There I am at my local Micro Center and picked up a USB powered screen. It's a little bigger than I really wanted...but it's thin, light and again, USB functionality. One wire for power and signal makes it very nice to hook up.

Being the computer is so small, it only has 2 usb ports. I picked up a USB hub and a UBS wireless keyboard from Micro Center...

I had a bunch of other things I wanted to power and control...so BACK to Amazon for some switches that are marine grade and water proof.

With all this extra electrical... stuff... I planned on adding a marine battery to the center console. I picked up a battery isolator, again Amazon, that has a small micro processor in it as well as another one that is more like a starter solenoid, that would function as my extra fuse panel power feed for key on power. Or... add a switch and I would be able to power all this stuff off JUST that battery without drawing the vehicle battery dead.

Great plan.... but....

If any of you are on Facebook and have found the Excursion group there, you may have seen some of these pictures and read a thread that Randal and I had about placing a battery right there between the seats. This does have the potential to be basically a bomb between the seats. As a battery charges and discharges it gives off Hydrogen. A spark at the wrong time...and things may not end well.

I'm still working on getting the DVD's moved to the flash drive. This does take more time than I thought it would. I suspect that this winter I'll have more time. i may also find another program that works faster. Right now it takes about 40 min per DVD.
______________

The console....
I'll admit I made a few mistakes. First is... I'm not very good at woodworking. Second... I made one measurement from the dash to the back of the front seats. This would be great, except the dash does curve slightly. That means that my Console isn't square, and I didn't notice till it was to late. Some day I may rebuild it and correct that... but at this point I'm going to run with it.

I grabbed some cardboard from work and made 2 templates. One for each side panel. Like I said I took one measurement from the dash to the back so I made both of these the same overall length. The cardboard worked very well though.

Materials... I picked up a 4x4 sheet of 1/4" Oak paneling. My second mistake... I didn't realize there was a "nice" side.... So one of my panels is backwards. I used 2x2 strips to make a frame inside to hold things where I wanted them. I got some 1x6 boards to use to make the rest of the unit.

When Randall and I started talking I had already started the construction of the unit, and had to make some changes on the fly.

I decided to forgo the battery, and found my iceless cooler in the garage. By itself it wouldn't fit in the space I had. So I ran to Fleet Farm and found a plastic garbage can that fit perfectly. I got home and cut apart the iceless cooler and disassembled the cooling element. I found it uses conductive cooling to keep things cold. The element bolts to an aluminum piece that spans one side, the bottom and up the other side. Being the cooler is larger than the garbage can I measured and cut the aluminum piece to fit the garbage can. I then used silicone to glue it to the plastic garbage can. I picked up some insulation and glued it to the garbage can to help insulate it. At this point I haven't had a road trip long enough to test the cooler, but I'll let you know how it works out.

Cup holder....
I used my Ozark Mountain mug (Yeti or Rtic mug) and a can of soda to build my cup holder. I figured that would be the large and small of what I will use. My upper set of holes is 4" the smaller holes down in the middle height of the cup holder is 3." After a week of driving, I can say this arraingement works very well. I have had ZERO issues with tipping. I had built this origional unit as a modular piece so if I didn't like it I could throw it out and start over. At this point... I don't think I'll change it.

Storage....
Behind the cooler is a 7.5x7.5 by 12" deep spot to put things, it's as wide as the arm rests and, I brought it up to the level of the arm rests as well. I may change this down the road. There isn't much space, but really I don't need a ton now that the DVD's are back in the house.

Below the arm rests it steps back out to the width of the seats, this leaves 2 areas on each side that will give me "storage" for all the electrical adapters and such for the monitors and amp.


So.. I have 14 switches. Yes... 14.
My plans to control things.
Panel 1
A key off power on switch for all the secondary fuse panel accessories.
Dash cam
CB
Radar Detector
Iceless Cooler
EXTRA
Rear headrest monitor power on
Amp/rear control
Computer power control

Panel 2
KC Driving lights
Flood style light bar
back up lighting control
Future interior lighting
EXTRA


And now... the pictures.... Sorry at this point I don't have all the electrical stuff hooked up, so like the computer, I haven't powered up yet. I'll get more pictures when I'm completely done, things light up etc.

I'm also planning on staining it, then multiple coats of varnish on it. Right now it's all just raw wood.



Ok... time for pictures! LOL

 

I'm not sure why the pics are sideways....

 

Thats a lot of switches!

 

Love the looks of this. Subscribing to this as I really want to do something like this to my Excursion after I get the F650 dash installed. I am currently adding reverse lights/driving lights etc. and have OTTRAW switches for these and am currently wanting to add some USB charge ports as well.


Great work and keep providing more pics of your progress.


Rob

 

Looks bitchen so far.

Wrapping that in leather would look sweet.

Automotive grade leather to match the excursion is available from places like Tandy leather ( I was just in one of their stores and they had some )

Anyhow, just an idea.

 

Maybe if I rebuild it without the flaws... lol

I'VE never done something like leather or even a cloth like that... I would definitely need to find someone to help! Lol

 

Reminds me a lot of Toms console. I really like it!

 

I was seeing something like this. Yes APOC that's a Mike Model (UH-60M) Cockpit.[url]https://www.google.com/url?

 

Holy hell. Command central. If you had the launch codes I do believe you could launch North Korea's nukes from there.

 

Covering it hides the flaws, just like drywall hides all the crooked framing in a house.

The simplest method of covering it would be a single piece instead of sewing sections together, it's pretty much a glue and go process.

Here is a video to illustrate the process.

 

A few tips,

1. Order some Barge rubber cement. It is the real deal, industrial strength.

2. I would hit all the sharp edges and corners with a sander, put a at least a 1/4 if not 3/8 round over on all those edges to not only save your elbows once installed but also it will look more like the rest of the interior profile.

3. Take your time and it will turn out great.

This is the glue you want. ( there really is no substitute for this product so just bite the bullet and order it from Amazon )

 

You can google "custom center console" and tab over to images to get plenty of ideas but if you have ever seen all those crazy shapes and wild looking interiors at car shows this is basically how they do it.

Typically custom interior guys use MDF instead of plywood or solid wood and then build contours with Bondo, fiberglass, foam and other materials. But nothing wrong with yours, it's awesome.

This is what they look like being built

 

Note the putty in the seams and radius edges.
This will give the finished product a nice even finish and keep the leather from sagging into the cracks over time.

 

That does spice things up a bit, but won't the putty change the color of the staining leaving funny streaks?

I like the idea of covering it, but I like the look of wood. Humm... decisions decisions....

I've got more trim work to do, like in front of the cupholder and along the edges I plan to run trim. (I have it just not installed yet)

I need to pick up a small piece of wood for my console lid as well. I'd like that to not be wide open like it is currently.

When I get some time I'll make a list of the switches and parts I got from amazon

 

Stained and polyurethane finish wood is cool. I dig it.

I was just throwing ideas out for you.

Yes, putty would show if you don't cover it.