Car stereo + broken computer = a father/son project
 

First off, thanks for the help in my computer hardware geek thread, guys...you confirmed and helped me on this.

My son and I worked on this for about 2 hours total time...and had a good time doing it. He learned how to strip and crimp wires, as well the fact that Gorilla Tape is very sticky.

How to turn a desktop computer into a workshop stereo.

Ok...I started off with an old Dell GX270 desktop computer that died last year. The power supply was still good, but the motherboard was shot.

I gutted everything out of it and drilled out the spot welds that held the bracket to the top cover. I measured and made sure there was enough room inside to put the stereo, then marked out where I had to cut for the DIN opening.

I then tried to cut the plastic cover from the front to make room for the stereo, and failed at making a clean cut, so the front piece was removed, and the plastic cover put back on.

After locating the wiring that gave me 12VDC (thanks guys on this site), I set out to making the wire loom, to make it look clean on the inside. At the same time, I removed plugs that weren't needed, and capped the wires off.

The one thing I didn't have was a speaker wire terminal block...that will be my next purchase whenever I get around to ordering it online. My next addition will be a cooling fan from another computer and hook it up to the switchable power line from the stereo, so that the fan comes on when I turn the stereo on. The cpu fan that came with this computer was too large for what I wanted to do...it's a barrel type fan, and wouldn't fit on the back.

Here's the inside...

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...psaff8008c.jpg

The outside...

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ps0038f593.jpg

And a stock photo of what the computer looked like before I got my hands on it...

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ps2e849fdf.jpg

I think I saw this posted on your Facebook JP. Very cool indeed! Makes for a nice Sunday project.