The centre console was designed to cover the Toyota Starlet gear shifter however before making it, I had to move the handbrake as it was too close to the gear shifter housing.
I cut the factory handbrake bracket from the floorpan and made a new one. The replacement had nuts welded on and a brace included, as the factory bracket is often prone to cracking around the top hole.
The new mount was stitch welded on 50mm rearward to provide more clearance between the handbrake & gear shifter. Due to this position change I will also need to also shorten the pair of handbrake cables by 50mm each, cut and rejoin with some ferrules (and brazed together).
I also had to move the handbrake cable holes in the tunnel back 50mm. This was as simple as cutting a specific section out and rotating in 180deg and welding back in.
I cut the factory handbrake bracket from the floorpan and made a new one. The replacement had nuts welded on and a brace included, as the factory bracket is often prone to cracking around the top hole.
The new mount was stitch welded on 50mm rearward to provide more clearance between the handbrake & gear shifter. Due to this position change I will also need to also shorten the pair of handbrake cables by 50mm each, cut and rejoin with some ferrules (and brazed together).
I also had to move the handbrake cable holes in the tunnel back 50mm. This was as simple as cutting a specific section out and rotating in 180deg and welding back in.
At 150mm wide the console was deliberately made as narrow as possible to maximize legroom. I cut out openings for the gear shifter, a voltmeter, power window switches and a storage tray. I wanted to have something to hold a phone/pens etc however the narrow console did not allow me to have a standard DIN storage pocket (190mm wide). Some online hunting resulted in me sourcing a centre console storage tray from a Toyota Tacoma (car manufactured in USA).
The entire console was covered in fleece...
then soaked with fibreglass resin (to provide a harder wearing surface), sanded, skimmed with phenolic microballons/resin mixture and sanded down again.
For mounting the gear shifter boot, I made a frame that screws to the inside of the centre console.
The end of the console (against the firewall) was left open to allow room for the two shifter cables and also some wiring conduit that will be routed into the console. The wiring to the rear of the car (lights, fuel pump, etc) will also be routed though the centre console.
To fit the gear shifter boot to the metal frame, I sourced some marine snap fasteners. These come with a screw in them as they are normally screwed into timber or fibreglass panel but I drilled the screws out and made a 3mm hole in each snap fastener. When I make the boot, the snaps in the photo below will be bolted to the metal frame around the gear shifter, and the other side of the button snaps will be stamped through the gear shifter boot fabric/material.
At this time, the centre console will remain bare and I will wait until the car is painted and underlay/carpet installed, in case I need to trim any part of the console to make a better fit.
The original plan for the centre console was to install a voltmeter, a cigarette lighter and USB charging port outlets in the centre console however there didn't end up being enough room for all three so I installed the lighter & USB outlets on either side of the stereo instead.
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