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Ideas needed for under dash radio mount, cup holders, glove box

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BoyRacer

BoyRacer

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Listers,
I have eliminated the heater on my BT7 nasty boy, resto-mod, since I never needed a heater anyway. I now have a clean slate to create a true glove "box", with some kind of mounting for a radio and hopefully some cool looking cup holders. Any input , and/or photos, will be greatly appreciated.
Richard
 
I was looking at this VW cup holder a while back on eBay. Very discreet when retracted:

screenshot.1600.jpg
 
Thanks. That's just what I need.
 
You could probably do something like this that would put the speakers nearby: https://newhillgarage.com/2011/11/12/article-49-upholstery-of-center-console/ You'll want some kind of amplifier if you want to have any hope of hearing any sound in a Healey. I have a Becker Europa Stereo II AM/FM that has an attached amp that looks appropriate and with an adapter cable that hooks up to the pin adapter in the rear allows me to play music through my iPhone.

IMG_0241.JPG


If you don't mind cutting your kick panels I have 6" round speaker there and the enclosure makes a nice little speaker box that gives plenty of bass.
 
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Richard--

I have one of these units installed in my 100 which has a five-speed with center-shift stick.

https://www.cupholdersplus.com/model-a-vagabond-shorty-console.html

Depending upon how much room is created by eliminating the heater you might be able to adapt one of their units to accommodate a radio, etc. However, Rick's point about being able to hear a radio is very well taken and after dicking around with various radio/speaker combinations I finally gave up and went soundless for a number of years. Then, after I got hearing aids I purchased a bluetooth device which links to my cell phone and I can actually hear either music or vox at speed.
 
The attached pic somehow got inverted 90 degrees but in any case shows how the unit I linked to above fits on my 100. Because the Toyota box provides a center shift I am able to use this drink holder which is designed to sit on a fairly flat section of tunnel, and this would not work with side-shift cars.
 

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Thanks for all the great info. I'm going with the VW cup holder and put it under the parcel tray. That Healey Marque article completely changed my thinking.
I'm using '95 Miata seats that have speakers in the headrests but I'm also taking Randy's idea and adding speakers in the kick panels. At least I'll have some tunes during city driving.
 
BoyRacer said:
Thanks for all the great info. I'm going with the VW cup holder and put it under the parcel tray. That Healey Marque article completely changed my thinking.
I'm using '95 Miata seats that have speakers in the headrests but I'm also taking Randy's idea and adding speakers in the kick panels. At least I'll have some tunes during city driving.
Click to expand...
I had provisions for speakers in my kick panel area when I had Jule do my new frame and they appear to be headlight buckets. I didn’t end up doing the speakers but I have the option of doing them so they fit flush and are not obtrusive.
 
i bought a 5v transformer for around 6 bucks. it is small and hidden up on the bulkhead. there are 2 dongles on it for charging. i use one to charge a good bluetooth speaker and keep it on the shelf until ready to listen to music. then move it out on the tran tunnel and bluetooth to my phone. since the transformer has two dongles, i can charge the speaker and the phone if need be. speaker is loud so it works pretty well. and if i am at a car show, i can continue to listen to music and not use the car battery.

but then, i don't have speakers in my seats....
 
For the cup holders I felt that the stow away holders under the dash would be in the way of the knees and everything else when they are deployed. Unfortunately in the Healey cup holders are in the way no matter where you put them. If there is no radio or heater the ones like Michael have look pretty appealing. But I decided to put mine to the rear of the shifter, centered on the tunnel between the seats. I made my own out of metal and first made them shallow then decided to give them some height to accommodate deeper cups. I covered it in vinyl and it just sets on the tunnel. Unfortunately I am not good at taking pics while I'm working and I don't have a pic of it in the car. But it works well. It works as a nice arm rest when there are no cups in it. You do have to be aware of the cups when shifting but on long day trips an easy shift with handy cups is most pleasant. See Pics.
 

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Vette--

Actually I do have a heater (see pic) though as I remember the unit in 6-cylinder cars is a lot larger.

I'd like to have a cup-holder mounted aft of the stick but I am afraid it would interfere with shifting much as you describe.
 

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I see that in my last post the image is inverted and in an earlier post it is rotated 90 degrees ccw. Seems to me that some other folks experienced something like this a few years back and the problem lay somewhere in a setting. Can anyone "straighten me out"????
 
Michael Oritt said:
I see that in my last post the image is inverted and in an earlier post it is rotated 90 degrees ccw. Seems to me that some other folks experienced something like this a few years back and the problem lay somewhere in a setting. Can anyone "straighten me out"????
Click to expand...

I opened it (from your post), then saved it, then opened it (from my desktop) and rotated it, then saved it, then uploaded it here:

tunnel2.jpg

I don't know what to tell you to do differently because I can't duplicate the glitch.
 
I use an Android phone with a Windows PC. I email the photos from my phone to my gmail account on my pc. I open them from gmail and, if necessary rotate and/or crop, then make a screenshot which I upload to the forum. I like the screenshots because the file size is smaller.

On the Mac, you can probably rotate your photo in iPhoto. You can then use command-shift-4 to make a cropped screenshot.

Unlike Reid, I've had a problem with rotating the photo on my desktop, then having it still upload sideways. I get around that by uploading a screenshot.
 
Reid/Steve--

To be clear, I followed the same procedure with these two photos that I always do: I take the shots on my android phone, gmail them to myself as attachements and save them on my Mac, and they appear in correct format on my Mac.

This issue first appeared yesterday when I made post #7 and the image was 90 degrees out in a ccw direction, but I charged it off as an unimportant glitch until the same thing occurred in today's post #12 where the image is inverted by 180 degrees.

I know I could have adjusted their "rotation" in my saved files to compensate for what is happening when I upload them to BCF but swince I am quite certain that this same phenom happened a few years back I thought I would bring it to the attention of the "proper authorities" rather than simply fix it by making adjustments to the image in my computer.

Let's see if it happens when I post the image from post #12 again without any manipulation of it in my computer.....
 

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Hmmm--Still upside down on the forum and right side up in my computer!
 
How are you creating the "Attached Thumbnails" format? I don't even know what the process is to do that. (And notice the thumbnail is in a gray, rounded rectangle.)

Try the Insert Image tool above the text field of a new post. It's right of the Link tool and Unlink tool, and left of the Insert Video tool. Look in the Quick Reply box below ... see it?

(Notice that when I uploaded your image to my post there is no gray, rounded rectangle and no "Attached Thumbnail" title.)
 
Michael - on your Mac, when you get the image correctly rotated, take a command-shift-4 screenshot of it. Then you don't have to worry about the orientation when you upload it.

I've tried to upload these when I've rotated them on my computer and it doesn't "stick".

Another way that works is to rotate a pic in your phone gallery, using the "edit" command so that when you download it from gmail, it's already correctly oriented.

When you upload the picture to your Forum entry, double-click on it for the window where you make it medium or large.

Use the "Go Advanced" button, then scroll down to "Manage Thumbnails" to delete extra thumbnails.
 
Steve/Reid--

Thanks for the suggestions and I will do things that way in the future as an imbedded image is certainly better than an attached thumbnail.
As to Reid's question, I have simply been clicking on the "manage attachments" button and then selecting a downloaded file off of my computer which always posts a thumbnail. I'm still not sure how things got inverted/rotated on these two occasions but in any case will try using the keystrokes as suggested.
 
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