Sunday, May 3, 2015

2 TV Dash Installation Tweaks


After a lot of experimenting with ways to get the Knight Rider 2 TV Dash to fit perfectly I think I have a pretty good handle on it. Yesterday I tried this option using a long piece of foam pipe insulation I had kicking around. This is a 2" diameter split pipe insulation I got from Home Depot. For my test fitting I just simply taped it into position while I test fitted the dash again.

I noticed that with the pipe insulation in under the front of the dash that it raised up the front of the dash enough that turning the key in the ignition is much easier, it still rubs a little but my dash can also still go up another 1/4 inch approximately to light up the top of the Gull-Wing with the top of the Switch Pods this extra room should make the Ignition Key Collar clear the top part of the dash. I have even been informed that you can trim off the top part of the Ignition Key Collar that interferes with the dash if needed. I'll only resort to that if absolutely necessary.

I took two "Rubber Cups" square rubber blocks you can get from Canadian Tire or most furniture stores so as your furniture legs don't mark up your floors, I placed them close to the passenger side under the foam pipe insulation to give that part of the dash a little more height as it looked like it needed levelling up a bit to match my Switch Pods.


The drivers side of the dash needs to be pushed in more but I was noticing the the side mounting "Wing" was butting right up against the stock OEM dash so I needed to trim off a little of that. I figure about a good half inch by the looks of the picture (above right). So I trimmed of a little less than that to try it out and see if it makes a difference, if it does I'll file off a little more. I basically want to try and get the part of the dash that fits up close to the windshield in under that black masking or whatever it is that goes around the outer edge of the windshield. I think that is how it's supposed to fit.


Here are a few shots of yesterdays dash test fitting, it's really starting to come together and look really good. I still have a few minor tweaks to do like see how it looks now that I had put the "Rubber Cups" in under the pipe insulation close to the passenger side and see if that levelled out the dash that extra bit for the Switch Pods.

I also put a piece of foam pipe insulation over top of the steering wheel column and glued on a piece of high density foam rubber on top of that to help raise up the front part of the Switch Pods to help clear the top of the Ignition Key Collar.

I'll be doing another test fitting to see how those tweaks look today. I had to leave my foam pipe insulation over night to let the 3M glue set that I stuck it down to the stock OEM dash with so today it should be fine for me to go ahead and see how my tweaks will work out. I also hooked up the Voice Box yesterday for a test, first time I have ever done that. If you watched my latest video you'll see that is working really well. K.I.T.T. is REALLY starting to come to life. :)





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