And so with a plan half-formed I carted it home.
First it got a good wash and wax, there was an old bird's nest and about a dozen (fortunately empty) wasp nests to deal with. I thought about painting it, but just spot painting would make it look worse and a full paintjob would require me making new decals. May happen eventually, but not just now.

Then came the cutting. I wore a blade off my angle grinder cutting a hole for the cables and removing various nolonger needed brackets and bracing (esp. around the inside of the door) so everything fit.

Next the bracket for the monitor, I found a 17" ELO touchscreen to use so it had to be solid; a door mount would not do.

I decied to do it using 'rails' as I was more or less blindly mounting it. Please excuse the poor welds, still practicing. I sprayed a layer of truck bedliner on it to get a little more friction, it worked well.

For the computer I decided on a Foxconn barebones - had about everything I wanted: cheap, lower power, low heat, wireless, and small enough to fit in the head. Runs Ubuntu well enough, and Ubuntu does alright with the ELO touchscreen. Just needed calibration and it works fine.

And tada.

Also, a better look at the homepage I made for it:

(click for larger)

Weather feeds from wunderground.com, rss feeds from Boston.com, newsobserver.com (ofcourse), and Google News. All links functional, the main content section is iframed and the N&O banner a link home, makes navigating via the touchscreen easier.