July 2003, Cable Car

Last month, we began what would become a six-month installation marathon on our 2003 Consumer Electronics Show project, the Civic Si. We started out just like any basic install -- you know, rip the interior out and put the steering wheel in the middle of the car. When we left off, we had the steering wheel working perfectly in the center of the car, along with the brake, clutch, and accelerator. This time, we'll tackle the rest of the center-drive components, along with another smaller project.

In this car, the transmission is shifted via two cables. If you imagine the motion of a shifter, it basically goes side-to-side and front-and-back. There is one cable per motion, so moving the shifter side-to-side moves one cable, while moving it back-and-forth (to select a gear) moves the other cable. The only problem with our center-drive system was that the stock shifter cables were far too short to get to the side of our center seat.

The stock shifter mechanism translates the shifter movements to the cables (and eventually to the transmission) so we decided to keep it. In the stock Civic, the shifter mounts in the middle of the dash, and we were able to unbolt the assembly and move it to our desired position. We mounted the shifter to the area where the passenger seat would normally go, as it made a nice, solid mounting bracket. We made some custom 1/8-inch steel braces that were welded to the car, then we bolted the shifter mechanism to these brackets.

With the shifter in place, the only challenge was to extend the stock shifter cables to reach our new shifter location. To do this, we cut each cable in the middle in order to retain the special cable ends that attach to the stock shifter. We then used 1/4-inch aluminum rods to extend the cable length by approximately 18 inches. To do this, we drilled a hole in the end of each rod, just large enough to fit the cable inside. Then we used our 3-M Panel Bonding Adhesive to attach the cable to the aluminum rods. Of course, we couldn't just let the rods flop around on the floor, so we made 1/2-inch aluminum brackets that bolted through the floor to hold each end of the cable.

The shifter worked pretty well at this point, but the rods had a tendency to flex around the attachment point with the stock cable. To remedy this, we made a Delrin slider bushing between the two ends to stabilize the rods while still allowing them to slide freely back and forth. Delrin is a self-lubricating plastic, so it works well when minimum friction is desired. With this addition, the shifter worked just like factory.

The last detail was to re-locate the stock shift handle. The stock handle (the bent, gold-colored piece at the bottom) ended up being way too low as a result of our re-mounted shifter's angle. We built a chrome-moly tube and welded a bracket to the bottom to remedy this situation. Then we cut off the top of the stock shift handle and welded it to our tube, making a complete shift handle. After that final touch, the shifter was complete.

Next on our list of center-drive projects was the emergency brake. On the stock Civic, the brake pulls two cables that are located directly in the center of the car. Unfortunately, that was right where we wanted our seat to be, so we had to come up with a solution. We used a pair of pulleys and a length of cable to move the emergency brake to the right side of the car, next to where our seat would eventually be. The brake assembly was re-mounted with a custom steel bracket, so the cable redirects the brake force to pull on the center-mounted cables. We also added a turnbuckle near the stock cable ends to allow us to adjust the brake properly.

We were pretty happy at this point, because now we were ready to test our new center drive creation. The real seat wasn't built yet, so we just placed the stock seat about where it needed to be and took it for a spin in the parking lot. Everything worked great, so it was time to move on to the next step. Let me just go on record and say that it's really weird driving in the middle of a Honda Civic!

One of the things that I always tell up-and-coming installers is to "multi-task," meaning always have something else to work on. If you're wasting your time watching fiberglass dry or waiting for a part to come from UPS, then you're not maximizing your productivity. We always have a secondary project going in case we have some extra time on our hands. In this case, the secondary project was the monitor array that mounted on the rear hatch. This is a great secondary project, since it really doesn't affect the fitment of any other panels in the car.

We used a unique technique to form this monitor panel -- sandable foam. It's not a new technique, since surfboard builders have been using it for years, but it works great for quickly forming panels like these. The foam is very similar to the aerosol-type insulation foam found in Home Depot, but it is much more dense and consistent. We buy it in 2-inch-thick sheets then cut and glue it together to form our basic shape. In our case, we made a cardboard template of the basic shape we wanted, then marked and cut three pieces of the 2-inch-thick foam. Spray glue works great to attach the foam together, so we used Weldwood contact cement on both sides of each piece, then pressed them together.

Now that the basic shape was set, we simply sanded the foam down to our desired form. This foam sands extremely easily, so it didn't take very long to come up with the shape we wanted. Fiberglass mat and resin could now be applied to the top of the foam, forming the structure of the piece. We used thin, 1/2-ounce mat so that it rested easily over these very curvy shapes -- it only took three or four layers to make a strong shape. Once the fiberglass was finished, we used a combination of body fillers and sanding techniques to get the final shape. Don't worry about the details of this procedure just yet, because we'll cover it much more completely in future issues.

That's all the space we have for this month, but check out SteveBrownUniversity.com for some unique opportunities to learn these techniques hands-on, and keep those questions coming to sbrown@alpine-usa.com.

01: The stock rods for the shifter are not long enough to reach the desired location of our Honda's center-mounted set-up, so they had to be extended.	02: The shifter was mounted to the side of the stock passenger seat brace. Custom-made, 1/8-inch flat steel brackets were used for their excellent strength.	03: The shifter rods were lengthened with 1/4-inch aluminum tubing. The shifter rods were cut, then the tubing was epoxied to each end. Aluminum blocks were created to support the new length at each end.
04: The stock shifter handle could not be used, since the shifter angle was changed significantly, so a new handle was created out of 1-inch chrome-moly tube stock.	05: This angle shows the steel brackets used to hold the shifter in place, which are welded to the car's structure.	06: The new shifter rod was modified using part of the stock rod to accept the screw-on shift handle. This view also shows the Delrin bushings that allow the aluminum tubes to slide smoothly back and forth.
07: Here's another view of the completed assembly, which extends the shifter's length by approximately 18 inches.	08: The emergency brake also had to be moved from its stock center location. We used a pulley and cable system to make it work, along with a custom steel bracket for the emergency brake assembly.	09: The stock seat was temporarily mounted in the center of the car to allow us to test the center drive components.
10: The rear monitor array was constructed using urethane foam, which is basically what surfboards are made of. The monitors are held in place by a custom 1/4-inch ABS bracket that snaps in place.	11: The 2-inch-thick foam was cut into three sections to create the basic shape of the piece.	12: The three pieces were then glued together to create 6 inches of total thickness.
13: The foam piece was then sanded for the desired shape. This foam is extremely easy to sand, making it very easy to work with. This view also shows the custom stand made to fiberglass and paint the piece.	14: With the shape complete, fiberglass could now be applied to the piece. It only took three or four layers of 1/2-ounce fiberglass mat to get the desired strength.	15: The piece was then finished with Duraglass and Rage Gold body filler, and attached to the car.