im redoing my 78's interior how have any of you installed a cd player in the dash with out huge gaps i bought this truck for 600 as is wich included all the tools inside and every thing. i kind of like the yellow paint scheme on the inside hows about you.check out my gallery

 

I thought this was going to be an interior question.


Due to the actual topic you may search the words .
*CD player in Dash*

This should bring you the info you need.

 

Ya I put an Iwia CD player in my 78 and a Cobra 29 Cb both in my dash looks good to

 

I carefully cut out the the factory two **** mounting area and installed a din size stereo with no gaps. And no the yellow paint is not to my taste but hey it's your ride.

 

I also installed a CD player in the dash. On the plastic dash panel, I cut out the entire radio area. Then, on the radio/heater control bracket, I cut out a hole for the radio mounting sleeve (almost same size as heater control hole, BUT NOT EXACTLY!) This made the bracket VERY flimsy, so I made a faceplate out of sheet metal and epoxied it to the bracket. It works perfectly, although there's like 1/8" gap between plastic dash panel and metal bracket. It NEVER skips, even without supporting the back of the radio! Would this make a good tech article???

 

I had a buddy weld on a piece of sheetmetal to each side of the lower part of the metal radio/heater control panel, of course I had removed the piece from the dash first. I then cut out the din opening as close as I could get it, stuck the din sleeve in there, left about a 3/4" of sleeve sticking past panel and pried out those little metal "wings" on either side of the panel. Reinstall the heater controls and bolt the thing in place, connect your radio/CD wires, and pop the stereo in the dash. Rock solid and stuck out past the plastic dash surround enough to use the cd players plastic trim to hide the cuts in the dash piece. I havent figured out what I want to do under the cd player though, there is still a little gap that you can see the unpainted metal support. I just used a short piece of electrical tape to hide it. I should paint the metal support next time I mess with my truck.

Hot tip: If your careful, you CAN wiggle the heater controls out of the metal support piece without disconnecting any wires or controls. You have to unbolt the support from the dash first and the radio has to be removed. After you get the controls wiggled out, just mark where the tightest spots were and grind or file off a little metal for ease of re-installation after you modify it for a din player opening.

Both my 77 2WD trucks have the dual tank switch integrated with the heater controls and I didnt have to unplug anything. It took me about 20 minutes of wiggling before I figured it out, and then I forgot when I did the other truck so another 20 minutes it took me.

Good luck, I hope you like puzzles!

 

I just unplugged the wire connector to the fuel gauge switch and fan switch and angled the heater controls out of the bracket, took about 2 minutes for all that. Why struggle when you can just pull those two plugs? I didn't unhook any cable operated controls.

Also, I tried to open up the factory bracket to fit my cd player and it ended up breaking so I just cut the bottom part off, cut a square peice of sheet metal and cut the din sized opening in that and then bolted that to the stock bracket. I also made sure the sheet metal was the right size to re-use the lower two screws the factory bracket used that way it's as strong as it was.

I'll post some pictures tonight if I remember.