depronman
A2OC Donor
I have been busy all weekend preparing my recently acquired double Din Dash for fitting to the A2 hopefully next week.
I came across a problem which I was half anticipating, it would appear that Audi never did a double Din dash with none climate, so as my TDI is none climate (rotary heater controls) I needed to fit these in to the lower bay of the double Din dash, sounds simply but was a right PITA
After much head scratching, measuring and re measuring I figured out that the only way was to remove the heater controls mounting lugs, all four of them, and then make up new mounting lugs.
Also the heater control face panel had to be reshaped to fit the curve at the bottom of the dash, once this was done and the mounting lugs sawed off, some measuring done and top brackets where fabricated from 2mm PCB board and attached to the heater control panel with a self tapping screw in the top corner and attached to the dash using the existing mounting screws that locate the cage into the dash.
That left the lower part of the heater controls flapping in the wind, so a couple of 3D printed brackets where designed and printed to attach to the cage.
With that done (took 1/2 a day) the new head unit was put in place and measured up for mounting brackets.
I designed a couple of brackets for each side and 3D printed them, the first one was not quite right, so a mode to the model and printed another which was spot on. That just left a couple of 3D printed plates to hold the head unit in place (the 2 brackets on each side means that it is really secure, so the plates are simply holding it into the aluminium cage)
That just left a facia to make, again 3D printed, but had to be in 4 pieces and glued together as it was 10mm to big for the bed of my 3D printer, once glued together a light sanding, primed and sprayed mate black.
With it all assembled it looks great, everything lines up perfectly, head unit is very secure and I will have a very up to date 7" touch screen that does FM radio, Music / films / pictures from both TF card and USB pen drive, Blue Tooth for music and the phone and Sat Nav, plus a rear view parking camera.
I am still working out the best place to mount the rear view camera, it needs an 18.5mm Dia hole, one idea is in the rear bumper, but it would be vulnerable to damage, another is to 3D print a mount for under the rear spoiler which would be safer and hopefully would keep the road muck away from it.
All being well the dash swap will take place next weekend, I will update the thread once the dash is in with some pictures of the finished product.
I came across a problem which I was half anticipating, it would appear that Audi never did a double Din dash with none climate, so as my TDI is none climate (rotary heater controls) I needed to fit these in to the lower bay of the double Din dash, sounds simply but was a right PITA
After much head scratching, measuring and re measuring I figured out that the only way was to remove the heater controls mounting lugs, all four of them, and then make up new mounting lugs.
Also the heater control face panel had to be reshaped to fit the curve at the bottom of the dash, once this was done and the mounting lugs sawed off, some measuring done and top brackets where fabricated from 2mm PCB board and attached to the heater control panel with a self tapping screw in the top corner and attached to the dash using the existing mounting screws that locate the cage into the dash.
That left the lower part of the heater controls flapping in the wind, so a couple of 3D printed brackets where designed and printed to attach to the cage.
With that done (took 1/2 a day) the new head unit was put in place and measured up for mounting brackets.
I designed a couple of brackets for each side and 3D printed them, the first one was not quite right, so a mode to the model and printed another which was spot on. That just left a couple of 3D printed plates to hold the head unit in place (the 2 brackets on each side means that it is really secure, so the plates are simply holding it into the aluminium cage)
That just left a facia to make, again 3D printed, but had to be in 4 pieces and glued together as it was 10mm to big for the bed of my 3D printer, once glued together a light sanding, primed and sprayed mate black.
With it all assembled it looks great, everything lines up perfectly, head unit is very secure and I will have a very up to date 7" touch screen that does FM radio, Music / films / pictures from both TF card and USB pen drive, Blue Tooth for music and the phone and Sat Nav, plus a rear view parking camera.
I am still working out the best place to mount the rear view camera, it needs an 18.5mm Dia hole, one idea is in the rear bumper, but it would be vulnerable to damage, another is to 3D print a mount for under the rear spoiler which would be safer and hopefully would keep the road muck away from it.
All being well the dash swap will take place next weekend, I will update the thread once the dash is in with some pictures of the finished product.