Making an airbag delete tray
03-10-2005, 06:39 PM
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Making an airbag delete tray
I have been posting this on Super Honda and decided to post it here also.
I am 'glasing my VAFC and a gauge (right now an air-to-fuel, but that might change) somewhat recessed into the empty space where my airbag and airbag tray used to reside. Here's how to do it:
You will need the following tools/materials to complete this project:
Disposable paint brushes from your local hardware store (I use the 2" width)
Fiberglas resin and hardener (buy extra hardener, you will need it)
Disposable mixing cups
Latex gloves
Acetone (it is the only thing that will take resin off)
Fiberglas mat (I don't use the cloth too often because the mat is usually thicker and stronger)
Scissors for cutting the fiberglas
Duct tape
Masking tape
Aluminum foil
Now onto the process.
After you have removed the tray, mask it completely off with duct tape and aluminum foil as seen below:
Notice how I did not mask off the back completely - which is because I am only going to lay the glas on the top of the airbag tray, not the bottom. But if you look at the second picture you'll see how I had to stretch the duct tape over the lip. I did this to add tension to the duct tape because where the airbag tray bends/curls down (towards the dash itself) the duct tape didn't want to stick. If anyone needs me to elaborate on any of this please let me know. This might seem a bit confusing because I'm not editing this post, just typing straight through ('got other things to do tonight).
Anyway, now we fiberglas! :D Do the conversions (on the container of resin it gives you mixing instructions in drops of resin or some other crazy crap) on an online calculator and then mix it a TAD hot (do NOT put a lot more resin in than recommended because it will heat up in a hurry and cure before you ever to get lay any down). You'll become acustomed to mixing after a few batches, trust me. I don't even look at how much hardener I'm putting in anymore I've done it so much.
OH, a little piece of advice, put some kind of releasing agent on the duct tape / aluminum foil like Armorall, etc. It will help the resin/fiberglas come off easier.
After you pour the hardener in, mix it thoroughly with your paint brush. Apply the resin to the airbag tray and then place the strips of fiberglas mat that you cut onto the resin'd areas. Doing it this way helps the fiberglas avoid air bubbles. Then once the strips are laid down, add more resin with your paint brush on top of the fiberglas.
It has been really cold here recently so I added a heater into the mix to help the resin cure faster:
After the resin has FULLY cured you can then pop the mold off:
That's all for now. I'll be back on later on this week (hopefully) with more progress.
I am 'glasing my VAFC and a gauge (right now an air-to-fuel, but that might change) somewhat recessed into the empty space where my airbag and airbag tray used to reside. Here's how to do it:
You will need the following tools/materials to complete this project:
Disposable paint brushes from your local hardware store (I use the 2" width)
Fiberglas resin and hardener (buy extra hardener, you will need it)
Disposable mixing cups
Latex gloves
Acetone (it is the only thing that will take resin off)
Fiberglas mat (I don't use the cloth too often because the mat is usually thicker and stronger)
Scissors for cutting the fiberglas
Duct tape
Masking tape
Aluminum foil
Now onto the process.
After you have removed the tray, mask it completely off with duct tape and aluminum foil as seen below:Notice how I did not mask off the back completely - which is because I am only going to lay the glas on the top of the airbag tray, not the bottom. But if you look at the second picture you'll see how I had to stretch the duct tape over the lip. I did this to add tension to the duct tape because where the airbag tray bends/curls down (towards the dash itself) the duct tape didn't want to stick. If anyone needs me to elaborate on any of this please let me know. This might seem a bit confusing because I'm not editing this post, just typing straight through ('got other things to do tonight).
Anyway, now we fiberglas! :D Do the conversions (on the container of resin it gives you mixing instructions in drops of resin or some other crazy crap) on an online calculator and then mix it a TAD hot (do NOT put a lot more resin in than recommended because it will heat up in a hurry and cure before you ever to get lay any down). You'll become acustomed to mixing after a few batches, trust me. I don't even look at how much hardener I'm putting in anymore I've done it so much.
OH, a little piece of advice, put some kind of releasing agent on the duct tape / aluminum foil like Armorall, etc. It will help the resin/fiberglas come off easier.
After you pour the hardener in, mix it thoroughly with your paint brush. Apply the resin to the airbag tray and then place the strips of fiberglas mat that you cut onto the resin'd areas. Doing it this way helps the fiberglas avoid air bubbles. Then once the strips are laid down, add more resin with your paint brush on top of the fiberglas.
It has been really cold here recently so I added a heater into the mix to help the resin cure faster:
After the resin has FULLY cured you can then pop the mold off:
That's all for now. I'll be back on later on this week (hopefully) with more progress.
03-10-2005, 06:40 PM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (Electrodynamic)
More progress! :D
One layer of fiberglas isn't enough to comfortably hold the form so I added another layer of fiberglas by laying the fiberglas mat over the edges where I poured the resin and then laying more resin on top of it with a paint brush. After it cured the panel looked like this:
After that fully cured overnight I cut the resin that was hanging over the edge of the airbag tray. I used an air-powered gun with a cutting wheel to do the cutting.
I then marked where I needed to sand or cut with a permanent marker and did the necessary modifications.
And finally I measured my VAFC and made an MDF dummy of it.
More to come later.
One layer of fiberglas isn't enough to comfortably hold the form so I added another layer of fiberglas by laying the fiberglas mat over the edges where I poured the resin and then laying more resin on top of it with a paint brush. After it cured the panel looked like this:
After that fully cured overnight I cut the resin that was hanging over the edge of the airbag tray. I used an air-powered gun with a cutting wheel to do the cutting.
I then marked where I needed to sand or cut with a permanent marker and did the necessary modifications.
And finally I measured my VAFC and made an MDF dummy of it.
More to come later.
03-10-2005, 06:41 PM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (Electrodynamic)
The next step is to lay down the fiberglas border/mold of the airbag tray at the appropriate angle and lay the dummy pieces in place...roughly. (note how I duct taped off my gauge so the resin wouldn't stick to it)
In order to get the round gauge mounted how I wanted it I put a trash can and a spare subwoofer enclosure I had laying around next to each other with a little bit of a gap inbetween them. I then used hot glue around the edge of the gauge and inserted it from underneith and rested it on the subwoofer enclosure (the lower of the two), like so:
Now this is where it gets tricky. The goal here is to use hot glue around the edge of the mold to hold down the fleece. That isn't hard...what is hard is trying to keep wrinkles out of the fleece. Any wrinkles you have will give you an extra hour plus per wrinkle with bondo trying to fix it. I laid down a small bead of hot glue (about 7" or so - depending on what side/angle/wrinkle I was trying to lay down/fix - per application) and then GENTLY stretched the fleece over and pressed down with my fingers. Oh yeah, be careful...hot glue is just that...HOT. So try not to get it on your hands. If you get some on your hands while applying just be a man and hold in the pain. It's a lot more trouble to try and fix a bad fleece application than it is to just bear with the pain.
And here's what it looks like when you make it all the way around:
Now that you've glued the fleece down to the top of the mold you can flip it over (glueing it to the top of the fiberglas mold lets the excess you need for the sagging stay in place when you flip it over). Repeat the above process all the way around the mold.
This is what it looks like when before you trim off the excess:
And after you've trimmed the excess (just use a pair of std. scissors):
I then laid the mold with the fleece and gauge attached down over the same supports but with a good bit of aluminum foil down (to catch the overspill of resin). I mixed up about 9 oz of resin, mixed the hardner, and literally poured it on. After I poured about half the resin on I used a brush and spread out what I could and then poured more resin on and repeated (pour, spread, pour, spread, etc) until the resin was gone.
And right now I've got the heater on it again letting it cure. :D
In order to get the round gauge mounted how I wanted it I put a trash can and a spare subwoofer enclosure I had laying around next to each other with a little bit of a gap inbetween them. I then used hot glue around the edge of the gauge and inserted it from underneith and rested it on the subwoofer enclosure (the lower of the two), like so:
Now this is where it gets tricky. The goal here is to use hot glue around the edge of the mold to hold down the fleece. That isn't hard...what is hard is trying to keep wrinkles out of the fleece. Any wrinkles you have will give you an extra hour plus per wrinkle with bondo trying to fix it. I laid down a small bead of hot glue (about 7" or so - depending on what side/angle/wrinkle I was trying to lay down/fix - per application) and then GENTLY stretched the fleece over and pressed down with my fingers. Oh yeah, be careful...hot glue is just that...HOT. So try not to get it on your hands. If you get some on your hands while applying just be a man and hold in the pain. It's a lot more trouble to try and fix a bad fleece application than it is to just bear with the pain.
And here's what it looks like when you make it all the way around:
Now that you've glued the fleece down to the top of the mold you can flip it over (glueing it to the top of the fiberglas mold lets the excess you need for the sagging stay in place when you flip it over). Repeat the above process all the way around the mold.
This is what it looks like when before you trim off the excess:
And after you've trimmed the excess (just use a pair of std. scissors):
I then laid the mold with the fleece and gauge attached down over the same supports but with a good bit of aluminum foil down (to catch the overspill of resin). I mixed up about 9 oz of resin, mixed the hardner, and literally poured it on. After I poured about half the resin on I used a brush and spread out what I could and then poured more resin on and repeated (pour, spread, pour, spread, etc) until the resin was gone.
And right now I've got the heater on it again letting it cure. :D
03-10-2005, 07:54 PM
#7
Re: Making an airbag delete tray (e jay one)
why do you want to see the sides of the AFC? it would look way cleaner if you pushed the MDF plug up from the back so you could flush the screen in, just like how how you did the gauge.
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03-10-2005, 08:19 PM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (Bailhatch)
Making it flush would mean that I can't change the display. I want to be able to change what I'm looking at.
I want to be able to change what I'm looking at.
03-10-2005, 08:48 PM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (Electrodynamic)
More pics!!
And yes, that's a screw driver that you can't see. It's camo. 'Enough said.
And yes, that's a screw driver that you can't see. It's camo. 'Enough said.
03-22-2005, 07:04 PM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (Electrodynamic)
Next, I used the air sander to knock the big stuff down (a flat, round, sanding bit - you should be able to see it in one of my earlier posts). Using hand-sanding would have taken a month or so to achieve the same results I got in about 30 minutes.
Modified by Electrodynamic at 10:41 PM 3/23/2005
Modified by Electrodynamic at 10:41 PM 3/23/2005
03-23-2005, 05:39 PM
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I did some more sanding on it tonight. While sanding I found about 4 places where the resin did't fully soak through so I mixed a little bit of resin and brushed it into the areas that needed it. After it dried I tried sanding again but the paper came off of its metal holder, so I had to get some pliers to get the little metal holder out of the air tool. SO, now there's a new sanding disk in the tool which I will use tomorrow to do more sanding.
04-27-2005, 08:57 PM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (Electrodynamic)
Yep, Ok. I am still working on this. Working two jobs has me going full-tilt with no time to attend to this project. I am, however, working on this project this weekend. I am cutting out the hole for the gauge and making the cuts for the VAFC to mount and also going to wrap the plate in black vinyl. I'm not going to paint it b/c it will be on the dash and I don't want a lot of glare.
But yeah, I'm still working on it and taking pics.
But yeah, I'm still working on it and taking pics.
04-27-2005, 10:25 PM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (Electrodynamic)
You know normally I really nock people who take out there passenger side airbag just to put in that god awe full not to mention useless JDM tray. I still don't approve of taking out your airbag but to replace it with what your doing is well I don't know. All I can say is it looks really good. I don't think I would ever take out my Airbag but if I did it wouldn't be for anything less then what your building right there. Its streamline, smooth and looks like it was made OEM for your car. Its just a real piece of work. GOOD WORK that gets my approval. This is the first piece and hopefully the last mod I like for removing the passenger airbag. 
07-30-2005, 02:26 AM
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Re: Making an airbag delete tray (nocturnaldragon)
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by nocturnaldragon »</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You know normally I really nock people who take out there passenger side airbag just to put in that god awe full not to mention useless JDM tray. I still don't approve of taking out your airbag but to replace it with what your doing is well I don't know. All I can say is it looks really good. I don't think I would ever take out my Airbag but if I did it wouldn't be for anything less then what your building right there. Its streamline, smooth and looks like it was made OEM for your car. Its just a real piece of work. GOOD WORK that gets my approval. This is the first piece and hopefully the last mod I like for removing the passenger airbag. </TD></TR></TABLE>
i roll my blunts in my tray
</TD></TR></TABLE>i roll my blunts in my tray
