Center Console DIY
 

Materials: 4x8 sheet of ½” particle board, 1’’ brad nails, ¾’’ brad nails, 1 hinge would glue, silicone and carpet,

Tools: Sawzall, 4.5” angle grinder, palm sander, drill, file and hammer

Step 1. Remove front seats, in my truck they were all bolted together so it took two people then there are 4 13mm bolts underneath that hold the middle jump seat onto the two front seats. Remove those then that seat is gone. I then took a 4.5’’ angle grinder and grinded the brackets off of each seat that those 4 bolts did go through so my new center console would sit right on the floor of the truck. You will see in my pictures that the carpet is out, im not for sure it is 100% necessary to remove that, but I did because I was already working on the A/C drain leak at the same time.

Attachment 102909

Step 2. You will need to measure the bottom piece for your console, mine was 11’’x 43’’ I had to make it this big because I am putting a 10’’ MTX sub inside of it. If you make it 11’’, it will fit, but it will be tight. After you get that made you will need to nail some supports to the bottom of it so it is supported the whole length of the floor.

Attachment 102910

Step 3. You will need to make the front step up underneath the cig lighter. After that you can start to make the sides. I made mine 12’’ tall, you can make yours shorter or taller depending on what is a comfortable height for you to rest your arm. I cut two of these then I nailed them together so I could sand and cut them at the same time. So they were both equal.

Attachment 102911

Step 4. You need to decide what you would like to have in it. I decided I wanted to put my CB radio in it, along with a change cup, and two cup holders. And after that I decided to put a 400 watt power inverter in it so I have a 110 outlet in it too.
Attachment 102912

Step 5. you can nail the sides on with a couple nails just to temp. it up, they will be coming back off later. I had to put a brace in the back just to make them stronger. Then I ran a piece straight back under the cig light on top of the two side pieces which will hold the CB and change holder and cup holders. Then I decided to have another step up after that which brought me back up to the original side height of 12’’.on that ramp I will have 4 switches. One for the power inverter, one for the amp (in case I want to listen to the radio without the sub), one for the CB, and one for the strobes.

Attachment 102913

Step 6. You next need to cut holes for the cup holders. I used a 3.5’’ hole saw and did a few measurements on the lower of the two top pieces. And cut them. You can make them any size you want, but I am a big fan of the MT DEW 1 liter bottles and it just so happens they fit right in. Then you can move up the very top and you can decide how long you want to make the lid that will lift up so you can store all kinds of goodies in there. I made mine 13’’ long. Just a hinge for it and I put a guide post and a swivel eye inside of it so when it is up you cant break it off by pushing on it sideways.

Attachment 102914

Step 7. Next you have to take it all back apart and start gluing it together. I only had a couple nails in it until this step just to hold it in place to make all the other pieces. After gluing it all together, you should wait a little while to let the glue set up. You will already notice that it is 10 times stronger just with the glue. Then I went ahead and ran a bead of silicone on the whole inside of the bottom front and back corners because I am using this as a sub box too.

Step 8. (if you don’t use a sub skip this step) You need to cut a piece 10’’x11’’ to fit the sub in. cut out a 10’’ circle. Screw the sub into that and silicone it. The nail that in, in the front of the 12’’ section of the arm rest. Then silicone on both sides of that.

Attachment 102915

Step 9. you need to silicone all of the corners and gaps, for the sub to sound good and then you can start carpeting it. i did the top pieces individually so in case the sub blows up or it need to come it can come back apart.

Attachment 102916

Step 10. you then can go ahead and carpet the rest of the sides.

Attachment 102917

Step 11. The final step is put it in the truck hook up your power and grounds and put the seats back in, then sep back and appreciate all your hard work.

Attachment 102918

Attachment 102919

Attachment 102920

Attachment 102921

Make note that this took me about 30-35 hours to make, it could have been done faster if i had the right tools, but its not bad for just having used a sawzall, angle grinder, palm sander and drill.

I hope you guys like this and if you have any questions please let me know, i have alot more pictures i could put up. let me know if you are interested. Enjoy!

thats awesome man, i've been wanting to do something like this for a while.

now that you've got this write up i might try it soon

and just out of curiosity what was the price of everything

the sub i got for 30, the amp was 50, the power inverter was 30, the wood was about 20, the carpet was 20 and the nails and glue added up to about 20. so in the end it will cost about 150-175 dollars. i didnt think it was that bad. and the sub in there sounds awesome. IMHO. but yea if you have any more questions on how it went and if you want anymore pics then let me know.

I want to do this too but I want to fiberglass it! :)

But this is a good starting point for me, thanks for the DIY. Always good to have a ton of DIY's around!!

Great post, great DIY, lots of pictures and steps that are easy to follow

Good job on it, it looks sick and practical.

yea i hear ya on that, it would have been ideal to have it fiberglassed, but i was already having withdrawals on not having my truck. it sat in the parking lot with no seats in it for 5 days. so towards the end i was getting a little anxious.

Thats awesome, looks good.

lol I hear ya! I dont have the center consol at all right now!! I took it out to investigate just what you did :)

But now it NEEDS brake work and shocks. Ill go from there

yea and like i said you could probably have it done in a weekend, but i just didnt have the right tools. and i already like it alot. if your interested you could pm me and i could send you all the measurements and more pics.

nicely done... what did you have before the center console? just the fold down "third" seat?

yea i just had that 3rd seat in there.

if you had a table saw it would have been ALOT nicer...but with the tools listed....nicey done

just a wee bit of advice,
box looks good.. but you really should have screws in it.... a bunch of them, the vibrations of the sub will indeed break the glue bond, and i dont think it'll take too long esp with a sealed box

just a warning

there is screws and nails in it. along with glue and silicone. yea i kinda figured it might blow it apart with it being sealed. there are ports in it, but probably not enough. but thanks for the advice!

ah.. i musta missed the screws

if its ported you can find the proper port specs and make sure its tuned right

where could i find something like that? all i did was put 2 3.5'' holes on the side of the box under the cb. i did that after i started using it and it sounds 10 times better than it did.

probly on MTX's website should list all the specs you'd need

Ok so hows the 10 sound in a RC? Im gonna do audio (at some point...) and im thinking a 10 would be best. What do you listen to and how many watts is it getting? :)

i listen to pretty much everything, hip hop, rap, country, classic rock, alt. rock. and it sounds awesome. it still have the stock door and rear speecks in there, so when i get around to upgrading those it will sound so much better and im only using a 300 watt amp.

awesome! I can tell you from experiance that the rear speakers dont do much. Unplug them or change the balance/fade and try it out before you remove them :)

Im going to get a 3 channel amp and just do fronts and a 10", just wanted to get your input since you have a RC too :)

how tight is the box between the seats?

do you think you could fit a 12" sub if you built a wider box, or would that be too wide?

Nah man that box is 11'' wide and it touches the seats on both sides. i mean you might be able to make it work with a 12'' sub somehow. im not ruling it out. but to still be able to use the seats and the cab without modifying the seat brackets it cant be any wider than 11''.

I'm kinda curious how one would go about bolting this thing down?

i just sits there. the two seats press up against it. and the front of it sticks up under the front of the dash. the seats have to be out to put it in. its not going anywhere.

what about an ext cab :( i'm thinking keep the original seat in there, gut it out and build a box to fit in... any ideas?

console