Attached are pictures from my steps in making and upholstering a real 3rd gen driver side A-Pillar with 3 gauge pods embedded to look like stock.


Those that know me and my projects aren't surprised by my desire to have modifications look stock, but this one was a complete PAIN to discover how to do.


I am interested in those that might want one.

Review the pictures and I await your replies.

In these pictures you can see that i attached a 2 gauge pillar overlay.
(Made of hard shiney plastic) - ugh.

I trimmed the top and bottom off, making sure to maintain the normal location, and then plastic welded it to it.

After that i used bumper filler (plyable) and merged the two together.

After that I added thin sweatshirt material to it to replicate the spongeyness of the original vynil covering.

More in the next post.

 

Here is an additional photo of prep before vynil covering, and a few of the the final product.


Folks, without a vaccuum table, this is tortuously hard...
So, if I am to mass produce these, someone needs to offer one up for sale or offer how to make one. (Maybe from an old air hockey table?)

 

Looks great, but you could have saved yourself a great deal of effort by buying a 3 guage A-piller pod and upholstering it. I know Auto Meter makes (made?) one out of black Kydex that you could wrap easilly.

 

I see you are using Plastruct Bondene...

That looks like a really awesome job.

In order to vacuum form the vinyl to the pillar, you'd have to drill a grid of tiny (~1/16") holes across the entire surface of the pillar, before attaching the sweatshirt material. This would allow the vacuum to suck through the pillar so the heated and pliable vinyl would be "encouraged" to follow the contours of the part. You'd also have to build what amounts to a "fence" around the perimeter of the part, on the back side. The fence would interface tightly with the vacuum table so that the vacuum would pass only through the front surface of the pillar.

James

 

looks nice....I was wanting to do this to mine as I also hate the plastic look... I would need a way to get my 60mm defi gauge to fit in the upper hole...I'm going with 52mm in the lower two...

 

Actually no, not according to thier site, or any other that I could find.

Noone makes a compelte ready to install in place of the stock pillar.

They only make a cover that can be screwd (ugh) or glued (ugh) to the existing pillar.

This appears to be the only upholstered, pillar that (since its made FROM a mazda pillar) replaces the stock one.

I forgot to mention that i'm using STRI gauges.

...the amber peak hold ones.

EGT / Boost / and Oil Temp

I am replacing the 1/4 inch wide (gaudy) red buttons with smaller radioshack micro momentaries (the tiny black one in the image.

Screwed in from behind (inside the pod) no retaining nut is required and only the tiny shaft of the pushbutton is visible. (almost completely IN-visible)

(See pix)

 

Any way you could do a RHD one. dual or triple. Id be first in line!

 

How hard was it to cover it in vinyl and Where did you get it? I have the autometer three gauge pod and Id love to cover it in vinyl!

 

Nice work



later

 

I would like to see the autometer pillar.

Can you post a picture?


It was incredibly hard to cover, it took days of slow streching, alot of heat, and the best contact cement on the market.

 

Not the best, but you get the idea. I thought I had a better one. I'm still looking...

 

So that pillar completely REPLACES the stock pillar?

it snaps right into the body pillar or does it sit OVER the stock one?

 

It's a cover. So I had to drill a hole into it to pass the wires through and IIRC for the mounting pegs. I can't remember that last part for sure though.

 

Ah.

So that autometer pillar is NOT a pillar that replaces the stock one.

To answer the person that said I should have gotten that one, the ones i'm thinking of making would be REPLACEMENTS... NOT covers.

Much better in my opinion.

 

I agree. I would have preferred a replacement as well. But at the time, that was all that was available. If the above is a good price and quality, then I'd be more than happy to replace this thing.

 

i fiberglassed a 3-gauge pillar to my a-pillar instead of using some kind of sealant. i also just spraypainted my a-pillar instead of re-upholstering it. mine came out great

 

I thought about it, but the idea of the REST of the upholstery being soft and vynil, then that being hard and plastic-y, I thought I should go the extra mile there.

I'm on the fence if i would do it again, but would if i could re-sell them.

I like mods to appear to be like they were designed to be that way from the factory.

Had i not upholstered it, I would have painted it with a texture that replicated a grain as close as possible though.

 

i`ll take one..how much?

 

Here is the latest update.

I will be dressing the tiny holes around my micro switches. (Using heat to smooth the edges and dye to re-black it all.)

 

When I bought my autometer gauge pod I was little mad about it not coming prepared to go in but, I just went down to Home Depot and bought some stuff to make it snap in like stock its not perfect but it works.

 

I have a passenger pillar i could use, but where to get a RHD pod set?
any ideas?