BERYLLIUM BMW 323ci.

[robola 46]

Because I didn’t want to cut anymore into the aluminium plate on the top, I had to adjust the piece above that.

Here you see I cut something off of there, so it fitted nicely again.

I’ve got an Ipod Touch for a while now, but I’ve never been able to use this in my car, cause my old Alpine radio wasn’t compatible with this.

Now I looked if I wasn’t able to work this in next to the radio, but unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room. The screen of the Alpine is 18cm, and as you can see, there was only a few mm’s left to blend this all in, and I didn’t think that was enough.

Then I took the plastic frame of the radio, and placed it in the area I had forseen.

You can claerly see there’s almost nothin’ left to mount it in, in a nice way.

What is also remarkable is that the dashboard isn’t quite straight at the bottom.

And so, the little frame found its way into the bin . LOL

Then I made the hole into the alu plate. The meaning was to centre the radio , but that didn’t work out.

When I did that, there wasn’t enough room behind the unit anymore, and I hit the flap of the ventilation.

You can also see that the little iron frame, that was included in the Alpine box, won’t be used either.

I made myself a couple of aluminium brackets so I can determine of the device needs to come more forward or backwards.

Now, there will be many people here who know much about E46 , and I can see them thinking ‘why do so much trouble if you can buy a dubble din frame cheap, and ready to use.

I was going to use such a frame, until I fitted it, and threw it in the bin.

Watch de lines Left and Right

So you see, the bin is filled much faster than you think.

[Audio-Concepts]

I just felt a little giddy, seeing you back on this masterpiece! Looking forward to what is to come!

[robola 46]

This will beh ow the readio will get fitted in.

I can still slide it back- or forwards, but that won’t be much.

About the Ipod touch, I’m not quite sure how to use this. Then I make something for this device, I sure not want to see a cable or socket sticking out.

I’m afraid I’m going to use the Stanley knife to make the socket a bit smaller.

[Wicks]

I see you're tackling the dreaded E46 Double DIN install.

I've also got an E46 (M3) and I went through it earlier this year.

Not for the faint of heart that's for sure, but you're taking it to a whole new level with your fab skills.

Amazing work!

Can't wait to see more.

[robola 46]

A good friend of mine, whom I learned a lot from, always said, you have to start with the most difficult thing first. After that, it can only get easier.

So I started to make a Ipod Touch holder. When I started on this radio part, I already knew it wouldn’t be simple to do, but that’s a challenge that keeps me focused.

I first had the idea to work with aluminum, but I didn’t have enough confidence in the way it would turn out.

So I made it in polyester.

.

Here you can see I sandwiched the Ipod between a couple of layer of polyester.

When I was doing this, I realized : “WTF am I doing?”

Messing around with an Ipod that cost a couple of euro’s. Many things could go wrong and it could get broken.

But it was too late, I had to carry on.

Once this was dry, I had to do something extremely dangerous.

I had to pull the device out of the fiberglass trying not to damage it.

I took the Dremel, and cut away a little piece of the polyester.

[robola 46]

I need to do this right towards the tape, a bit deeper, and I scratched the front.

When this was done, I could remove the piece.

Because the holder was much to big, I cut away a little piece.

And so this wasn’t a problem anymore to remove it out of the fiberglass.

I also could remove the plug easily.

Then I milled/drilled it to a nicer state.

I was very satisfied with this.

But then I changed another thing. I left out the black rubber cover. Cause when I slided the Ipod into its case, the rubber didn’t fit perfectly around it.

So I pasted some little blocks on the back, so it sat nicely.

Again, it was a dangerous moment to f*c kit all up. I wanted it all to be like this so I just needed to rub the inside for a couple of minutes and done.

Once you’ve taken out the ipod, it had to look good too, doesn’t it?

Here you can see how it turned out, and I’m very pleased with the end result.

I taped the plug with superglue, and now it was time for the next step.

You can see that I cut out the unnecessary stuff.

I taped the cables upwards.

Taped the plug.

And after that I added a layer of polyester.

This little plank I brought back home, and once it was dry I immediately tried out if the Ipod stil functioned.

And yes, I still does, in spite of all the risks I took with the poor thing.Then I put the Ipod back in, and filled it with filler/mastic

[Purplehaze]

Very nice work!

I may have to borrow your technique and build myself an ipod holder, if that's okay?

Also, are you going to cut out an aluminum trim piece to go around the Alpine?

[robola 46]

I modelled out the ipod holder a bit, but there’s still a lot of work to do

The front looks pretty good already.

At the bottom, where the button is, I also rubbed out a rounding in the holder. First I thought it looked like crap, but the longer I look at it, how better it looks.

The rounding is still not quite good, and requires some work

In the middle of the rounding I need to go a bit lower, if you compare it to the rounding of the button.

I notice that, the more I look at pictures from the work I’ve done, I see little errors here and there.

From this front panel I took about 30 pictures, from all sides. Just to see if I couldn’t find any errors.. When you work on something hours and hours…you turn CRAZY

[Torres]

other eyes help as well when trying to find errors...as i'm sure you know. but that is crazy the way you did the ipod holder and how nice it's turned out so far. i looked at one pic like 'did he really just cover that entire thing in fiberglass??' haha but awesome work as always

[Samitha Padukkage]

there are no words to describe how brilliant this build is..

thank you for sharing this with us!