stock detachable faceplate

[johnnyfive]

let me start off by saying please excuse the poor quality pics..cameraphone, at night, with only a domelight for light :)

i am in the process of painting all of the trim pieces that are not the fake leathertype of plastic trim(all of the silver, and blackish parts) in my S sedan,

poor pic of the compleated armrests(as stated above)

(actually that does show the highcontrast look i was going for, but a little to well :)

and was going to wait to do the center stack until i got the new trim piece to replace the integrated head unit. But because i didnt feal like shelling out the 87$ for the trim piece i figured i would just paint the trim around the integrated unit(who knows, it might look cool)

so i started pulling trim pieces off the dash, pulled the climate control pod out to get painted also, and pulled the trim around the gauges, all went really easily, (except figuring how to remove the actually climate knobs from the face piece, but after i figured it out, they came out nicely)

until it came time to take the trim pice off of the radio. looked easy enough saw four screws holding it into the dash so took them out, and out poped the whole radio, and also the center AC vents...took a little work getting the ac vents off of the front trim but after i did that, gave me tons of play room in the cables to work at getting the radio of of the trim pice. took 1 screw off of each side, and about 10 tiny little plastic clips.

mind you i was listening to the radio the whole time i was working on this, and as i was popping off the little plastic clips the sound cut out, but the display was still lit up...thought i fried something...but snaped it back in, and back came the music. so i continued unsnaping the little clips, and when i got them all undone i come to find that it is a detachable face...built into the front trim section.

(head unit in dash)



(faceplate attached to frint trim)



so about an hour of work, and still dont have the part in a paintable condition. but there seem to be just a few pcb screws(like the riser screws that hold a motherboard to a conputer case) holding the display, and button section to the trim section.


well now i wrote this monster post, and all i really wanted to say is that if you really wanted you could take the faceplate from the integrated headunits into work, or the movies, or where ever with you... that is if you dont mind carryint a square foot of dash trim, and an hours worth of work, each time you want to do it :)

[ECHOKnight2000]

Originally Posted by johnnyfive

let me start off by saying please excuse the poor quality pics..cameraphone, at night, with only a domelight for light :)

i am in the process of painting all of the trim pieces that are not the fake leathertype of plastic trim(all of the silver, and blackish parts) in my S sedan,

poor pic of the compleated armrests(as stated above)

(actually that does show the highcontrast look i was going for, but a little to well :)

and was going to wait to do the center stack until i got the new trim piece to replace the integrated head unit. But because i didnt feal like shelling out the 87$ for the trim piece i figured i would just paint the trim around the integrated unit(who knows, it might look cool)

so i started pulling trim pieces off the dash, pulled the climate control pod out to get painted also, and pulled the trim around the gauges, all went really easily, (except figuring how to remove the actually climate knobs from the face piece, but after i figured it out, they came out nicely)

until it came time to take the trim pice off of the radio. looked easy enough saw four screws holding it into the dash so took them out, and out poped the whole radio, and also the center AC vents...took a little work getting the ac vents off of the front trim but after i did that, gave me tons of play room in the cables to work at getting the radio of of the trim pice. took 1 screw off of each side, and about 10 tiny little plastic clips.

mind you i was listening to the radio the whole time i was working on this, and as i was popping off the little plastic clips the sound cut out, but the display was still lit up...thought i fried something...but snaped it back in, and back came the music. so i continued unsnaping the little clips, and when i got them all undone i come to find that it is a detachable face...built into the front trim section.

(head unit in dash)



(faceplate attached to frint trim)



so about an hour of work, and still dont have the part in a paintable condition. but there seem to be just a few pcb screws(like the riser screws that hold a motherboard to a conputer case) holding the display, and button section to the trim section.


well now i wrote this monster post, and all i really wanted to say is that if you really wanted you could take the faceplate from the integrated headunits into work, or the movies, or where ever with you... that is if you dont mind carryint a square foot of dash trim, and an hours worth of work, each time you want to do it :)

I kinda know what you're going through, I did a similar thing to my ECHO sedan...I painted the middle part and the guage cluster thing...but yeah a lot of work, but its worth it in the end...I don't know about you but for me I'm pretty ignorant about this stuff but I like exploring and seeing how stuff works or is assembled, and its really simplistic, I guess that's a give in considering its an economy car and its cost cutting, as long as things hold and are quality I don't care how "simplistic" it is. I just look at stuff that I took a part and like you I was amazed at oh its only held by this or that, easy!! Anyway so you're going to paint your dash trim? Post more pics when you can! Good luck! Tricky part is putting it all back together!