Center Instrument Bezel

The original bezel in the car was missing the top part that had the air vents. Annoyingly it seemed to be really easy to break if it was bent even slightly. And repairing it was impossible. So I had bought another bezel from an earlier Corvette. This version still had the button for canceling the seat belt buzzer. As the horn was missing from the steering wheel, I desided to temporately use it as horn button. I also wanted to replace the steering wheel at some point so buying the horn hardware would be a waste of money.

I also wanted to add a modern DIN-sized radio to the car. I didn't care that much about original look so the normal position would be used. There are aftermarket versions of the bezel that already have the DIN-slot but they are pretty expensive. The one I bought already had some holes drilled to it so it didn't feel bad to cut it up. If it had been in perfect condition, I would not have used it. So, I used a saw and file to cut a large hole to fit the radio.

While working with it, I also removed all the gauges and cleaned them to the best of my ability. They had some small rust spots on their faces that I couldn't fix but at least the connectors were good. While fighting with the electrical gremlins, the fuel gauge also had let out some smoke. It still sort of worked but for some reason the needle went well over the full tank marking. Maybe I should also replace the gauges at some point but for now they were OK. The clock wasn't working either but for some reason it cost a lot more than any of the other gauges so I could live with a broken clock.

Finally I built a simple switch below the button to act as the horn button. Pushing the button grounded the horn relay and would play the horn. In theory at least because when testing the system, I found out that the relay was not working... Connecting it was simple: I just added a wire running from the steering column connector to the button.

Connecting the bezel to the car was again quite fiddly. I connected a huge bunch of wires and lamps to the gauges and started fighting. Getting the bezel to the correct position was hard but after trying about a dozen times it went in. I quickly added a few screws to hold it in place so it wouldn't fall out.

Radio wiring was also quite simple as all the necessary connectors were close by. I bought a normal ISO connector and searched the needed wires. I would only need 4 wires: permanent 12 volts (pin 4), illumination dimmer (pin 6), ignition (pin 7) and ground (pin 8). Three of these were already in the original radio connector: black for ground, grey for illumination and yellow for ignition. Permanent 12 volts was also near: orange wire for the clock. As the clock was not working, I just used its wire for the radio. The other ISO connector is for the speakers so I just installed those wires and had a working radio!

For testing, I borrowed a cheap Clatronic AR 817 radio from my friend. I wasn't sure if a CD-player would fit in the radio slot so the AR 817 was perfect. It only had an MP3 player from USB card and a radio so it was really short. After installing it, I'm still not quite sure if a CD-player will fit. There is some room behind the unit but not much. I guess the only way to know for sure is to test...

Sound quality is not good by any standard but I'm not sure if it's because of the Kicker DS 460 speakers or the Clatronic. Probably both :D I'll have to try a better radio later. For now the system is good enough for testing as I'm not even sure if you can hear anything from the radio when driving. Or even when just idling the engine!