the overhead console is riveted to the headliner, from the factory the headliner is installed with that console attached to it as one piece, if the headliner is removed then you can disengage the rivets but there hard to get off without cutting or breaking them anyway, & there really not necissary to hold it up, plus once I remove it I want it to be easily removable again so I do not reuse these rivets & I break them out without damaging the headliner, so I don't take the headliner out. it is risky but can be done the console will still be able to be reinstalled without any visual problems if you don't damage the headliner.
cost, cost is a hard thing to calculate, depends if you have a pro do it or what really, & depends exactly what will be done. off the top of my head approx cost of the way I did mine:
~5 hours electrical plus materials, so figure ~$250-$300 for the wiring part of the job. then the actual upper screen mount & console is all Dependant of how it's done. I did mine in a waythat's a 2 piece design that would be pretty expensive to fabricate, maybe ~$450-$500 maybe, it uses an aluminum/epoxy composite frame insert to mount the screen & it mounts solidly to the upper steel reinforcement & looks perfect
depending on what other things are added to the console could drive costs up too. mine I put the display of the zeitronix for gauges & data & will probably add a few small switches or controls which could make costs go up from there too. truth is that's a lot of labor & time to create, but many other guys will just do it all out of bondo & fiberglass though & as one piece instead, which would be easier & cheaper, in the end depends how perfect you want it done & who's doing it.
these costs have nothing to do with the lower replacement screen work which could be pretty simple, or that could be expensive too depending on what you do there. my fx I put a 10.4" touchscreen PC which was an insane amount of work & materials including replacing the whole dash to an 06-08 dash pad just to get it to fit right, all said & done duplicating that setup would drive the whole project over the 6K range which is too crazy & probably not what most would be looking for really,
personally if I was going to do a simple multimedia head unit setup I would probably start with a flip out headunit that has a 6.5" touchscreen, personally I'd use the alpine 1003 or 1004 ai-net unit, only cause I'm familiar with it & I already did a remote mount setup with this screen in my other car & it worked out awesome.alpines my personal favorite mm head, this is the same headunit I believe as what doc has in his fx but his is mounted under thestock radio in the clock area & is still motorized.,
for a custom install to me it's nice to start out with a flipout unit so you can take it apart & remove the motorization part & just mount the screen independently behind the factory bezel for the best factory like fit. with this alpine unit I would then relocate the head units main controls down to the clock area along with an alpine pxa h701 processor display, this could get a bit expensive too depending how it's done but this would be an ideal system to me..
I tend to be kinda picky though & I tend to go to extremes to get stuff the ideal way I'd want it too, which is to look as if it just came that way, the costs of this level could be pretty high, there are ways to do it cheaper too of course & I'm sure there are guys out there that would do the whole thing in a day or 2 & charge much less for everything but may not be perfect or even nice, depends, the more you spend the more you get when it comes to custom work
a double din would be possible too & has been done before, but for that you will have to modify the ac ducts to stick it in where it don't really fit all theway in & it'll stick out a bit more than the factory screen does & require modifying the bezel to make it fit & will not look recessed like the factory screen sits now.
if you can find a different screen setup that fits behind the screen opening easily then the labor there could be a lot less too, all dependent on what equipment you choose for that really, the alpine setup is just what comes to mind that I would use, but I guess I'd still research what else is out there too before deciding for sure... a seperate screened unit would be best I think
