Dashboard Radio Plate 04 Dolphin 5355

[gr8pix]

Hello,
I'm looking for a source to replace a broken dashboard radio plate on my new to me Dolphin. I've been trying multiple wreckers in California, Ebay etc. with no luck so far. Here is a shot of the plate to the right of the steering wheel. The one to the left of the steering wheel is a mirror image so if need be, I may be able to fabricate with plexi or something similar. Please let me know.

[BluesCruz]

I think I would consider doing both sides in nicely stained and varnished wood panels (burled walnut veneer?). Would add a classy look to the dash. Just my thoughts.

[gr8pix]

Originally Posted by BluesCruz

I think I would consider doing both sides in nicely stained and varnished wood panels (burled walnut veneer?). Would add a classy look to the dash. Just my thoughts.

Thanks for your suggestion! I think at this point it will be the only way, I have a friend that builds custom hot-rods & he may be of some help.



Walter

[bkennedy]

Is it cracked? If cracked, you could repair it by gluing it back together, then cover it with whatever you wanted. I really like the wood idea though. I was thinking of using mine as a template and making new panels out of a nice stained wood.

[Winemaker2]

Woodgrain acrylic / synthetic panels may be your best alternative.
https://www.greatlakesskipper.com/pl...RoCaoAQAvD_BwE

Or similar

[gr8pix]

Thanks for all the great suggestions & inspiration, you have to be resourceful when you own and old RV! During the past week I ripped out the carpet and installed vinyl plank flooring, covered the dog house with leatherette and cleaned up all the old obsolete wiring that was growing like a cancer under the dash. I feel like I'm ready to tackle making a custom dash panel out of plexi & then veneering it with either a wood or possibly a carbon fibre, and will be nixing a radio altogether and relocating my TPMS to that location. I should be able to do with a jigsaw & a router. I can run Bluetooth to my sound system from my phone. Should I want one later I can replace the old CRT backup monitor to a colour LCD and mount it at eye level on the dash. It's starting to look like a new custom coach. I'll post shots when I'm done.


Thanks all!

[bkennedy]

This thread has my brain thinking about redoing the dash panels. I replaced the entire sound system, including the head unit a few years ago and it's a single din unit. I should have redone that panel and put in a double din touch screen. Would have made using the stereo while traveling much easier.

Make sure to check that the wiring is correct to the diagram before cutting stuff out. I found a bunch of wiring that was done wrong from the factory when I rewired the surround sound feature for the new stereo. They had black power wires that should have been grounds, green always on wires that were supposed to be switched, like they were just hooking up the closest wires to the closest wires. Even the stereo speakers were wired completely wrong; three out of the four were wired backwards, and all four of them were wired into the head unit wrong. The same cross-eyed dude who put in all the crooked screws must have done the wiring.

[gr8pix]

Originally Posted by bkennedy

This thread has my brain thinking about redoing the dash panels. I replaced the entire sound system, including the head unit a few years ago and it's a single din unit. I should have redone that panel and put in a double din touch screen. Would have made using the stereo while traveling much easier.

Make sure to check that the wiring is correct to the diagram before cutting stuff out. I found a bunch of wiring that was done wrong from the factory when I rewired the surround sound feature for the new stereo. They had black power wires that should have been grounds, green always on wires that were supposed to be switched, like they were just hooking up the closest wires to the closest wires. Even the stereo speakers were wired completely wrong; three out of the four were wired backwards, and all four of them were wired into the head unit wrong. The same cross-eyed dude who put in all the crooked screws must have done the wiring.

Wow! It's really funny that the stuff that I'm pulling out meets the same criteria as yours. So far I've pulled out the wiring from 2 navigation systems, a Tom Tom & a Magellan, Siriux antenna, and all the Wineguard stuff including the antenna on the roof, a CB system and the old stereo head unit the speaker wires are still intact from 2 previous systems however nothing is labelled correctly so I still have lot's to do. When I do my install I'll be labelling everything and using a methodical cable management system. I'm not sure what the previous installers were smoking when they made this mess!

[bkennedy]

I can almost guarantee you the previous owners paid people to mess up their wiring. Aftermarket installers are some of the worst, least trained people you could ever meet. I do it all myself, for a few reasons; I know it's done correctly, I know the systems and the wiring, I can diagram it for future reference, and it's a lot less expensive.

When I had to replace the Xantrex inverter/charger that was installed by Camping World many years previously, I found some awful wiring. The coach has four golf cart batteries, two in the OEM spot, two in the basement storage behind the entry door in a box. They fused both sets of batteries at the OEM location with the same fuse, but not at the other ends. They ran a heavy battery cable through a steel wall, then zip-tied it along the main wiring harness for about six feet to the fuse. If the wiring would have shorted it would have protected the inverter/charger on the other side of the fuse, but the main wiring harness could have been fried and destroyed the entire coach, or at least every system those wires went to and from, powered by all four batteries. I relocated the two batteries to the other side of the coach for weight distribution, and space reasons and fused the wiring on all ends. One for each set of two batteries, one at the other end before the inverter/charger.

I will leave some old wiring in place if it's going from where I need it to where I need it to go, and use it as a pull for new wiring in the future. I mark it on both ends with a label maker as "dead".

When I installed the new head unit, amp and speakers I spent the majority of the installation time fixing mistakes. Even the surround sound used the wrong wires. They had the camera power wires mixed up with the surround power wires, and even the dash TV/Radio switch was wired backwards, scotch lock connectors all over (I hate those things), etc.. I even found where they wire nutted the wiring for the coach battery cut off switch, then wrapped it in electrical tape. Look at the wiring going into the door cabinet from the basement storage, I bet yours is the same. This coach was previously my parent's and I know they didn't modify any of the systems, so most of this was from the factory.

I'm very particular about wiring because I've learned a harsh lesson. I have had a vehicle since it was new that's been heavily modified for off-road use. I added accessories throughout the years one at a time, with switches all over the dash, and spaghetti wires under it. I had a auxiliary battery main power cable short out, the mega fuse didn't blow on the battery side and it energized every ground in the car. Dash melted after the car died on the side of the 405 freeway while coming home from a multi-day Sierra rock crawling excursion. I dumped five gallons of water on it and used up two fire extinguishers without putting out the smoldering wiring. A fire truck just happened to be driving past due to wildfires in the area, pulled over, pulled a hose and dumped a few hundred gallons of water on it to put it out. I ended up buying another vehicle and swapping out most of the interior, including all the wiring harnesses. The new version has all the accessory wiring compartmentalized, separated from the vehicle wiring with solenoids, separate fuse boxes, with mega fuses and resettable breakers on both ends of the battery wiring.