by Elanlover » Sun 20.01.2008, 17:50
Tweet, the controls cannot be rotated within the whit plastic housing. But, they can be cut apart and mounted individually with what i think would be just a little creativity and customized mounting work. I wouldn't want the numbers to be facing the wrong way after all this work and expense either. might as well do it right. The heat control really needs to stay in the same place with the same orientaiton. The control rod might not function properly if its moved or rotated in any way. But, the other two controls don't appear to require any special orientation.
I'm not fond of all in one units. I don't like the flip out style and, while the double din unit where the entire screen is visible but rotates out to expose the cd player is nice, I've spent a lot of money on my Alpine 9965 head unit and I don't want to sacrifice on sound quality now. And, this will be the cheapest way to add an LCD monitor. There seems to be plenty of room for both the screen and existing head unit once we move the hearter controls and dump the ash tray.
Ray, this is a good question and it will likely be where the problems start if any. I really want to keep the vents. And, the OEM ones too to ensure a matched look. The options are no vents at all, one vent (which i don't like) or try to fit them both in. I'm willing to sacrifice the vents if I need to but I think there may be room for them. There's definitely room for one mounted vertically where the digital clock goes. The one to the right on the LCD panel (from the layout pic I posted) may be a problem. I'm going to let them worry about it and tell me if it can be done. I suppose if I could find very similar looking vents that were a bit smaller I could use those. But I haven't seen anything yet.
I was worried about rerouting the hoses to the vents but I think that will be easy. I'll cut the hosing off further back in the run and then simply splice in some ribbed, flexible hosing. I'll cut off the square ending to the hoses where they meet the vents and splice them on the ends.
I'm going down under at the beginning of February for 3 weeks so I won't get them to start on the fascia panel until I return. Right now, they are starting work on integrating a third brake light into the body of the spolier to get rid of the black box hanging off the bottom which will keep them busy for a bit.
I do whatever my Rice Crispies tell me to do