cmj917

Well, I finally got around to "fixing" my 3-pod a-pillar to hide the intrusive screw that holds it in place. It was fairly simple - drill out the hole, attach a 'washer' to the back of the pillar, and reinstall (with a screw cap cover thingy).

A special thanks to RJSS for his help on the install and http://www.cobalt-addiction.com for color matching the screw cover.

The picture doesn't do it justice (taken at night, with a flash, on a crappy digi), but you get the idea ...

twofknloud

sweet that is just sweet, now give it to me or i will put a curse on you

i gotta get one of those among other things to get, damn my list it too big

A-Town

Looking Good!!!

celicacobalt

i wish i could make mine look like that. looks 10 times better.

cmj917

Thanks for the compliments, and, in hindsight, it wasn't too terribly difficult to "improve" on the original design.

CTCOBALTSSS

Now that looks 10 times better.

I don't quite know what you mean by drill the hole and put a washer behind it.

Did you re-use the same screw? New screw? We need details. Thanks a lot.

That is the way it should look. Where can we get color matched caps like that?

yellowcobaltss05

looks really clean!! How come you dont have a wideband?

cmj917

Let me elaborate ...

In the original design, the screw head sits against the outside of the pillar.

Before pic (see the screw in the upper left?):


All I did was drill out the hole enough so the screw could fit "through" it, Then, I attached a washer to the back of the A-pillar with some Gorilla glue. The screw head now rests on the washer rather than the outside of the pillar.

It looks something like this (from the side):


The screw caps were obtained from here, and while they offer colored ones, we ended up just getting white. Then, www.cobalt-addiction.com was kind enough to color match them for us.

I have no need for a wideband yet, but the interceptors have analog inputs for if/when I do install one.

silver06cobalt

Hey quick ?

If i have the side curtain airbags can i still put one of these on safely? I kinda feel like if it were to go off with one of these on there the guages may become missiles aimed directly at my head.

Pretty sure i cant but if anyone knows whether or not its possible without being dangerous let me know.

CTCOBALTSSS

You are the man cmj917. That's all I needed. Thank you.

Edubs

Side impact airbags are mounted on the roof inder the headliner. The pillar won't effect anything. This is what I have heard, I have yet to disassemble mine...

Johnboy12358

Screw cover FTW, I was in refuse mode on getting one of these a-pillars just because of that damned screw, but I may have to try this out. Does Cobalt-Addiction carry the color matched screw cover? or did you grab another one and color match it with paint or something?

gilbert

congrats looks good bro this is how mine looks

Johnboy12358

did you do yours the same way that is mentioned in this thread gilbert?

gilbert

nop i just used a smaller screw the old cap from the pillar and some peel stick velcro so i can remove it and put it back when i need to very easy it loks allmost identical to the other side

RJSS

Good to see you got the how to up so quickly cmj917! woot! woot! We just put that thing in a couple days ago. It truly was a collaborative effort. I'm glad I've finally been able to contribute something meaningful to the site.

PS-That illustration is hella sweet. Are you a computer programmer or somethin? lol


Here's the story of the screw cap:
I got just a plain white screw cap from pro-dec as cmj917 said above, and then I called cobalt-addiction. I asked for the color information for their paint and they said they couldn't give it to me since it was some sort of three stage paint. However, they did say that if I sent them the cap they would paint it for me for free if I paid the shipping. So I sent them a couple and after emailing them a few times throughtout the next two weeks to see what was up, (they could have been busy and stuff since it was right after Christmas)they said they received it and would ship it out. About another week later I got them back and the paint was chipping off of some of them (they looked like they were thrown in the bag wet, but maybe it just didn't stick) but I was able to salvage two good ones. One of those is the cap you now see in the pic. I told cobalt-addiction that I would send them pics of the cap installed and let them know how we did it and also the website where we got the cap from so they could include it in with the a-pillar as a kit but they weren't interested. Also, for the washer I ordered a plastic snap cap recessed washer from the same website.

RJSS

I guess I killed this thread with my post...anyways bump for a good mod

Johnboy12358

I still want to do this, but there has got to be an easier way to get the cap matched. Frankly I think CA should include this fix with the pillar

RJSS

Very true. I was kind of surprised when they didn't seem interested in it at all. They probably think it's too much of a hassle to mess with. However, the screw cap and washer are like 10 cents each and they have to paint the pillars anyways. Just seems like if they charged an extra $5 for this "kit" they could make a little more money. Whatever. You might be able to just buy a bunch of caps and get some different colors of model paint from a hobby shop and just use trial and error until you find one that looks good. Or you could even see if any of the colored caps from prodec are close to matching. That's all I can think of.

CTCOBALTSSS

That fix should definitly be part of the pillar from now on.

I don't know if CA is going to hop on that though.

All CA has to do is order a bunch of caps and washers which are very cheap, paint the caps next time they paint a pillar and just include 1 washer and 1 painted cap in every shipment.

Even if they up the price of the pillar by like $5 I don't care.
They could even profit from this fix.

RJSS

Exactly. If you don't mind waiting though you can order the caps and contact CA and see if they will paint them for you like they did for me. They were pretty nice about painting them, it just took a while and hopefully the paint sticks better than it did on some of the bad ones I got back.

Johnboy12358

Could you link to the site that has the cover and washer?
Or is this something that you could pick up at home depot or lowes or something?

RJSS

Yeah. cmj917 listed it earlier but here it is again www.pro-dec.com They have a minimum order requirement, but perhaps that way you could try a couple different colors. The parts we used were the tap-caps and snap-cap recessed washer.

Also, I'm not sure if you can get them anywhere else. This was the only place I looked for them.

Johnboy12358

What size did you get? 8/8 or 12/12?

RJSS

Sorry. I forgot to say that it is 8/8.