Fake stock-radio faceplate, FINALLY

FINALLY, I've made the necessary modification to my install to accomodate the face stock-radio faceplate I created. Not wanting to butcher my own, I bought a used (stolen?) Volvo stock radio off EBay and removed the faceplate and buttons carefully. Thought the faceplate is not done yet, I have finally modified the install of my decks to accomodate it.

Here are some pics of how it looks now:



I had to recess the lower of my two decks (the Alpine) to accomodate the ::ahem:: cassette deck on the faceplate. I could NOT figure out how to pull out the darn tabs on the Alpine mounting sleeve, so I finally just dove in and fixed it. A little dremmel action and some incorrect measurements, and I got the deck recessed in the dash JUST where I wanted it.

I'll post some pics just as soon as I finish putting the buttons on the faceplate. The "ultimate in security" will have been worth the wait (waiting for me to get enough time and nerves to mess with it).

When my car got broken into I didn't have my stock cover over the empeg metal harness, but now I always put the plastic thing that was there before the empeg back in when I'm not in the car. Luckily my empeg wasn't in the car when it was broken into. But now you couldn't tell that it had any modifications when it is parked. And I keep my empeg in a padded fire safe (Sentry 1100) when it is parked.

but now I always put the plastic thing that was there before the empeg back in when I'm not in the car.

Yeah, I do that, too, but there's something just utterly cool about having a fake factory radio faceplate cover.

What happens if I have the real factory radio and tape player still installed? And I can actually use it with the empeg (I surprized myself getting that to work). Just don't ask how much modifing it took to the existing controls get the empeg to fit in a smaller than 1-DIN sized opening, and look like it belongs there.

That would be cool to see. Do you have pictures?

Hey, nice work! I've been away from here for far too long - work seemed to completely envelop my existence for the past number of months..

Still lovin' my Rio, and it's still mine thanks to my Stealth Install, oh if only the punks knew what lurks behind our dashes..

I'll post some pictures when I get my computer working again, or I hook up my compact flash reader to another computer. It sucks not having my desktop, at least I made good back-ups so I still have the pictures somewhere.

It does give me more time to work on my empeg project though.

Hey sphengali:
Good to see you around again. Yeah, I was away from the board for a while because of work and other life crazyness. Your fake faceplate pics always got me fired up to finish mine, so I'm going to try and do it today! I'll attempt your Alpine knob modification too because it's just TOO cool!

Cups:
What's this about a "padded fire safe (Sentry 1100)"? So you keep your empeg in that and leave it in the car when it's parked? So, is the fire safe hidden somewhere so people can't see it? I ask because in the rare instance when I have to leave my Pelican 1400 case, I want to keep it out of sight somewhere. I just don't know where to put it in an open-back station wagon with no covered storage.

I leave it about 50% of the time when my car is parked, and it is impractical to bring it with me. This is the case here (you need to add foam padding):
http://www.aboveroute.com/cgi-bin/s/s1_jump_to.pl?m_id=27&to_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.officemax.com%2Fmax%2Fsolutions%2Fproduct%2FprodBlock.jsp%3FBV_UseBVCookie%3Dno%26expansionOID%3D-536879615%26prodBlockOID%3D55119
And I use a chain to lock the case to the car body in the trunk out of sight. And when I'm home, I bring the safe in with me. Yes, I'm paranoid...

Awesome, that safe looks like a great idea. Too bad I don't have a concealed trunk in my station wagon or I'd do it too.

My fake faceplate is ALMOST done! I have been epoxying it night after night putting all the pieces together and it's been working amazingly. Almost done, then I'll post pics!

Just a note to think about as you make your fake face. I found that the pulsating LED shined through the crackes when the empeg was parked for a while. Also if I pushes the face on and pressed hard enough to push the empeg knob, the empeg would start up and be on even if the ignition was off. (you can turn it on again after shutting off the car if it is still in standby).

My solution to this was to modify the standby time after ignition shutdown to go off in 1 second (in the config). That way, it wouldn't have a chance to start up again if I pressed the false face on. I also put velcro on to make it stay. The velcro is stuck to the front of the kenwood (when faceless).

As you know, I've mentioned my false face before, in this thread:
http://empeg.comms.net/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=empeg_general&Number=124930&Search=true&Forum=All_Forums&Words=Saab&Match=And&Searchpage=3&Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=124685

For the LED, I just disabled it (also in the config).

Thanks for the tip. For my install, I actually take the empeg out AND use the fake faceplate. After all the war stories of stolen empegs on this board, I've resolved to never leave mine in the car ever again. Haha, I got two weird looks tonight alone from carying my Pelican 1400 case into stores.

My install has about as much clearance as yours for a faceplate to fit in, but my faceplate is too thick to fit over the empeg. Infact, I had to recess my Alpine deck like 1" in order for everything to fit. That was one of the biggest stopping blocks.

Ok, I WILL finish this faceplate just as soon as I find a 3"x1.75" LCD to replace the one I broke. Soon.... I've only been "working" on it how long, 9 months?

Ha, took me a while to get to this project, but I finally just sat down and finished the last bit of epoxying. Started 1/2003, took me 9 months to carefully take it apart, 2 more months to butcher all the pieces so they'd fit just right, then 8 more months to put it all back together. Well, it was worth the over-a-year-and-a-half of waiting for myself to get around to it.

It's purposly the low end stock Volvo radio with no CD player in order to draw less attention. All sliders move, the knob spins, the real LCD glass is in place, and most buttons can be pressed (with no feedback); all just for fun in a way. All that and it's probably only an inch thick, with the supports extending a bit longer. And, hopefully, the epoxy will help make it "bomber-proof", as they say.

(now that I stalled enough to let the images load)

All that time to turn this:


Into this:


To make this:


Look like this:


Now I just have to remember to put it in when I park. Getting there. Maybe in another year and a half.

VERY nice job!

That is ART!!! Nice work!!!

Well done! Good for you - not taking the easy way out and doing a quality job. Much respect to you sir.

Awesome job!!! Congratulations.Bravo.
Are you taking orders for other vehicles??

You know what, I honestly considered offering to make custom fake face plates; probably thought about it 20 different times while I was working on mine. It might just work, but:

- It would take me a long time to complete one. Actually, it only took a few nights' work for the faceplate itself.
- I would need a stock radio to work from (since finding one cheap was harrrrrd).
- It would probably be expensive; obtaining a radio + time to build.
- Customer's car's might have some little details that I'd have to account for, but I'd never see because I'd never see the car.
- There were probably more reasons.

Some of these could be overcome. Set EBay to e-mail you when it finds a used radio. Do single DIN only instead of double DIN (which requires accounting for the second unit; which in my case required me to recess the second unit into the dash over an inch). And for time, I learned alot of time saving tips.

So why not. If you (or anyone) has no time frame for completion; PM me with your car info, radio model # (if available), photo of the stock radio (if available), and a close up of the empeg dash cavity (empeg removed) and surrounding dash area. Might as well consider it.

Nice.

One refinement would be to wedge half a cassette in the opening, with chewed tape hanging off it. I've thought for a while that that would make a good deterrent, but I never got around to finding an old radio and scavenging its faceplate.

I totally wanted the tape door to hinge, but that was more "just for fun" work than I could do. But yeah, that would be a funny idea.

For a sacrificial radio, EBay. I tried contacting probably 30 salvage places on the Internet but got nowhere. Finally found a too-cheap-to-be-true used one (actually three seperate ones) on EBay. Can't resist a deal.