33 Coupe Interior 66        2/20/05

I thought about the location for the radio and decided on the right side of the dash. My other spot would have been under the gages right over the center console but I didn't think it would look right there because of how wide the console is compared to the radio size. I used a sheet and covered the carpet and masked off the gages, steering column and under the dash to keep the fiberglass dust to a minimum. Once I had things covered, I marked the location and then used my Dremel to cut out a hole. If you ever have to cut fiberglass with a Dremel, you don't have to drill a pilot hole, you just plunge the carbide bit right through and away you go.
 

 

 

I wanted the unit to be centered vertically and have the same distance between the gages and right side of the dash. The Alpine unit has 12 wires that needed to be hooked up and I put them all on two plugs. If I were using an amp, I would have had much more wires to connect, but as you can see by all the wires hanging down, I have a lot of things to hook-up still. Wiring takes time and is kind of boring so I won't be posting much as I work on it. If you look close, you can see an aluminum trim piece around the brake peddle that I had to fit once the carpet was down.  I also had to cut-down a piece that I made sometime ago that goes between the steering column and floor. I'm get'n close now so stay on board as I wrap-up the interior and take it for another test drive. 
 

 

 

3/05/05

If you notice in above picture, there are a lot of wires hanging down and now it's time to do something about them as they all go into the console. I'm going to have a total of eight switches to control everything but the headlights....kinda. What I mean by "kinda" is that the headlight switch that has been in the car for sometime now is the kind that pulls out in two steps. The first notch is for the parking lights which also turns on the dash lights and the second notch puts power to the headlights. It also has a dimmer if you turn the knob just like a modern car has but if you notice there is no high-low beam switch on the floor. This is where the "kinda" comes in because I'm going to have the high-low beam switch in the console. I'll talk about all the other switches in a minute but now let's get to the picture below which is a relay for my power windows. The power windows came with switches but they were the older kind and they didn't match what I wanted so in order to have my windows work properly, I had to buy two of these reverse-acting relays, one for each window. These will take the place of the way the other switches work that came with my power windows but it's not an actual switch. The end with the black plug which has a white and black wire (which is an exact match to what came with my switches....now how did that happen) is what goes to the window motor. To open the window, power is sent down the black wire and to close the window, power is sent down the white wire. Simple enough and you may be thinking why do I need all this when a SPDT (single pole - double throw) switch could do that? Well it's like this, when the power is going down one of the two wires, the other is acting as a ground which is why a normal SPDT switch won't work so this is where the double-acting relay comes in. This unit reverse's the polarity of current without me worrying about it and now I can use a switch that is "normally closed" with "momentary-on" for controlling the windows. I cut the wires with the black plug on it so I could use the plug-end on the motor and ran wires between them. All the wires behind the console received plugs for a clean install. 
 

 

 

The switch panel that will be going near the top of the console has six rocker switches in it that I bought from Rex Marine but will be polished instead of anodized which they offer as well. You can buy the switches with names on them or without and I got them without names because the names that I wanted they didn't have. Rex Marine offers two types of switches for there panels which are SPST (single pole, single throw) and momentary-on, off, momentary-on. They didn't have any SPDP switches which is what I needed for my power windows so I had to look elsewhere for that one. After looking at how the panel was made, I thought about sending it back and just making it my self but I decided to keep it and make one that held two switches to put at the bottom of the console. The reason for making the other panel is because Rex Marine doesn't make one that holds just two switches. This panel is 2 1/2" wide X 5.9" tall X 1/4" thick aluminum with an 1/8" radius that goes around the entire panel. They get held in place by four 10-32 set-screws that are blind-tapped and come with washers and nuts that are all stainless. 
 

 

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