Custom Dash Kit, How To

this one is fairly simple and made me some good money is for a 2003 jaguar X-type

first i disassembled the factory radio and removed the circut boards, and taped up the edge. the tape will ensure a tight fit and hep the router bit not to burn through the soft plastic

useing some dub. sides tape, a peice of 1/4 inch MDF we flush trim the face on the router table, and test fit

next we use supplied radio trim ring and mark out the inside on the panel where we want the radio to be, we than use a perfect square tool to router out the hole for the face of the radio. after test fitting i made another one on the router table incase i messed up or ever need to make another one

with some CA glue i tacked the pande to hy heat/ Ac controls (careful not to get on visable surfaces) than place back in to the car now i can adjust the bottom of the panel if you look through th radio opening you can see a  mdf stilt i ca glued in to keep the panel just right at the bottom. removed from the car i made a stilt fo all 4 corners and glued to the factory radio brace and lightly tacked to the new face panel as it will be remove later

with the face tacked in place we have a flat piece of wood and a curved HAVC control above it. now we tape up the HAVC controls and any where else we dont want body filler. with some reinforced body filler lay down a smoth even coat that fills the gap and contours the HAVC controls

than remove all tape and remove panel from stilts and lightly smoothe the edges just enough to get rid of the rough. retape just below where the last line was and any where you dont want to get filler(very inportant to tape off where the new panel meet the HAVC)

with some EZ sand light filler put on a good coat and sand smoothe down to 400 grit. it is at this time i round and shape the corners and edges to match factory ones. and test fit.

next i made to stilts and secured (with CA glue) them to the back of the panel (lightly as we will remove them later) with the radio mounted in the cage i placed the trim ovew the radio squared it up and CA glued the stiltes to the cage this (will ensure that the radio is trimed right when finel assembled)now remove the radio out the back of the cage, its a little trickey but can be done. with the radio removed i placed the panel and newly mounted cage back on the HAVC controls where it should fit like a glove ,and welded some tabs to the cage and then to the factory brackets than once again remove the panel from the mounts we put on the cage.

next i primed the panel with high build  EZ sand prime sanded with 400grit till smoothe. than laid down a few light coat of SEM Clasic Coat let dry than laid down a few texture coats by holding the can about 2FT away mounted the radio in the cage and reatached the panel useing caglue an reinstalled in the car

a small job a few dollors of meterials and hundreds added to the total i love car nobody else will touch

nice job there josh looks prety good

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