[s-cars] Compartment under the steering wheel (part number?)

[Franco Barber]

I've got one of those sitting at home in my garage.
I'm at work now and I can't find the part number, but I'm sure
that is the same shelf.  Note, if you order one, you need the
letter suffix for the color code.

I had a friend pick it up in Germany 3 or 4 years ago.
I never installed it because there are some real problems getting
it to fit into a US-spec car:

1) The knee-bar in the US spec cars has to come out.
2) The mounting brackets for the knee bar have to come out.
   The one on the right is easy.
   The one on the left is way up behind stuff and I couldn't get to it.
   I didn't want to just cut it off.
   Maybe maybe if you take out the left side air outlet vent you might
   get to it.
   If you can't get to the bolts, you could cut off the mounting bracket.
3) The top of the parcel shelf is meant to screw into mounting locations
   that are no longer there on the US spec cars.  The mounting points
   were cut out from the US dashboard to make way for the knee bar.
   Notice how the knee bar slides up and behind the dash?
   If you look where it slides up you'll see that something has been cut.

and finally.

4) The air conditioning conduit below the instrument cluster is in the way.
   This is the one that goes over and comes out on the left side of the
   instrument cluster.
   To use the euro-spec parcel shelf either you cut away and reposition
   the conduit, or you cut back the parcel shelf and somehow refinish it
   to close up the massive hole you have to make in it to clear the
   conduit.
   Before cutting, the hole in the parcel shelf is about 16" wide,
   6" deep, and about 3" high.  The refinished hold would only be about
   2" deep on the rightmost 8" after you are done.   You could still have
   some depth on the left side.


I wanted to do the mode in such a way that I could back it out and
end up with a stock car (with knee bar) if I had to sell it or if
I had to have a safety inspection for some reason.
All of these little problems, but mainly removing the left side
knee bar mounting bracket, made it difficult.

If I could get a spare left side knee bar mounting bracket,
maybe from a parts car that had a rear-end impact, I would have
cut off the original bracket.
The only remaining problems at that point would be cutting out the
back side of the parcel shelf to clear the AC conduit, and figuring
out how to attach the top of the shelf to the dash (since the mounting
points are gone in the US spec cars.)


Any more questions let me know.

Franco


On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 11:10:12AM -0600, James Murray (QB/EMC) wrote:
> Does anyone have a Euro Family Album that can check the part number for the compartment under the steering wheel?  I'm assuming this is a Euro only option, but it would be great to have !
> 
> See example in 3rd photo down in here: http://forums.audiworld.com/s4s6/msgs/19962.phtml
> 
> Anyone know of a source for this?
> 
> Cheers, /James.

-- 
Franco Barber                   feb at febsun.cmhnet.org
95 A6Q w/Gamma CD mit RDS!      Columbus, Ohio  USA
95 A6Q 5spd w/HCB-30 bluetooth car kit!