Very nice job, great attention to detail!

Super nice project.Will follow all the way!!

Very nice... Keep up the good work and keep the pics coming!

I disassembled the dash back in February. I just finished it up on Wednesday and installed it last night. It was a big project and I'm happy that it's behind me. I wasn't looking forward to this part of the build but it was accually easier then I thought it would be. I just took a lot of pictures and made a few notes for the reassembly.

The dash assembly had been sitting upside down on a bench for the last 7 or 8 years so it was very dirty.










The original pad was is great shape up until it was removed from the car. Dad tripped on something in the garage and dropped his end of the assembly which shattered the passengers side of the dash pad.

Dave from Rosevillemoparts.com was having a dash pad sale so I decided to go ahead and send my pad off to be redone. We worked it out so I would get my original core back to minimize any fitment issues.

While the dash pad was being redone, I sent the gauges out to Glen at GCAR. The gauges were in pretty good shape over all. Glen rebuilt the speedometer and relettered the odometer. I didn't want the mileage turned back to 0 so he left the mileage at 96439.(a car is only original once anyway right?) The tach was surprisingly pretty accurate but was recalibrated and cleaned up. The fuel level, temp, oil pressure and alt gauges were still in great shape. The clock was converted to a quartz mechanism.

I got the dash pad back within 3 weeks. There was a lot of extra foam that needed to be removed but that's to be expected with an Ultimate Rides pad. I trimmed a lot of foam out of the light bar area and was able to get that to fit. The drivers side lower dash trim didn't initially fit. I was able to get it fitting pretty good with just a little sectioning of the foam in a couple areas. I wasn't impressed with the fit of the right hand lower dash trim though. The pad was way too thick in that area and didn't line up with the trim.(where the trim and pad come together by the gauges) I should have just heated up the trim with a heat gun and moulded it to fit the contour of the pad...but I didn't. Like an idiot I tried to cut some foam out of the pad and ended up ruining it. I called Dave and told him what happened. I was fully expecting having to buy a new pad again. He got in touch with me a few days later and said UR would fix it for me as long as I paid the shipping both ways. So...the brand new messed up pad went back to UR.

I waited about six weeks and still didn't have the pad back. A couple calls to UR didn't seem to make a difference. Finally, I called Dave. Even though it was no longer his problem, he was nice enough to give UR a call for me to see what was going on. The next day I got a call saying the pad was shipping.

As soon as I opened the box, I knew that I hadn't been sent my original core back. I had engraved my initials in the core so I'd know if I got mine back. I think UR sold my core to someone else...that's why it took so long to get one back. The first pad was accually nicer then this one but I wasn't going to press the issue. I'd had enough messing around and just wanted to start the assembly. It's definatly nicer to be working with the original core because I had to redrill the speaker grill holes as well as the VIN plate holes in order to get those parts to fit.

I mounted the pad on the frame and installed it. I wanted to make sure it fit before I had it completely assembled.


There were a few issues but was able to work those out after talking with a few people and seeing some pictures of original dashes.

Here's a pic of the original heater control bezel.



This was my first time trying to refinish a part like this. It was accually pretty fun to do. It took four different paint steps to get it done. I think it turned out nice for being my first time doing it.

After cleaning off all the original paint, I sprayed the inner rectangle area with SEM Trim Black paint. Once that was dry, I masked off the inner section and sprayed the bezel with VHT Wrinkle Paint. Before spraying that paint, I sprayed a test sample because I'd never used the wrinkle paint before. The test turned out good so I went ahead with spraying the bezel. I sprayed it on a hot and sunny day and left the part in the sun for a couple hours. The heat made the wrinkles tighter and it matches what was originally there very closely. I let that paint dry for two weeks before continuing. The next step was to mask off the entire bezel except for the raised rectangle around the controls. I sprayed two light coats of chrome paint onto the rectangle. The chrome paint isn't very chromey(is that a word?) but it looks a little better then a silver paint pen I think. Finally, I used a white paint pen to redo the letters. After going over them once, they still looked dirty. It took another going over to get the white looking crisp.

The finish looks very rough in the picture but it is accually very fine in reality.


Here is a pic of the entire part. It's a little blotchy but you have to spray the wrinkle paint very heavily to get it to wrinkle. It looks better without the flash. The speaker fader knob and bezel are NOS parts my dad bought 20 years ago.


I redid the AM radio face plate the same way. I sprayed it with SEM Trim Black and sprayed the chrome paint on the raised rectangle area.

I bought a new M&H dash harness even though the original one was in good shape. The only problem area was the white connector at the steering column. The large blue wire melted the connector and had been bypassed a long time ago. I laid the old harness next to the new one and transfered all the secondary harnesses over.

The map light switch had major problems. The toggle lever didn't move anymore without a lot of force. I believe it was also causing a battery drain. I sent the switch out to Jim at JS Restorations. He rebuilt the switch and even kept the factory date codes intact. The plastic MAP LIGHT bezel was broken and I didn't want to try gluing the pieces back together. I found a metal one from a 70 Cuda that I cleaned up and painted black. I used Testors white paint for the recessed letters.

The factory woodgrain was in OK shape. The main woodgrain piece around the gauges had separated from the metal backing though. I was going to reuse the woodgrain but it just didn't look good enough. I lucked out and found someone online who had new pieces that they weren't going to use. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford them. They came flat and I had to bend them to fit the plastic bezel. I had dad give me a hand with that. We used a piece of pipe to push against to make the bends.

The new pieces look good but there are some differences between them and the original woodgrain piece. The new switch panel piece says "lights" where the original said "head lamps". The new part also has little pictures of wipers and lights next to the switches. The original didn't have those either. The main woodgrain section is a little different too. The brown around the gauges is a little different color and that section is a little too big. I had to put dimples in the metal so the trip odometer and clock handles would clear. Finally, the seat belt light hole on the right side wasn't in the correct spot. I had to grind some plastic out of the bezel to match the hole in the woodgrain piece.

The glove box liner is just a new REM part. The screws that held it together were different then what was on the original liner. I tranfered all of the original screws over to the new liner.

Very, very nice work you are continuing to do.

Darren that car is looking sweet. Keep the pictures coming.

You will be caught up with me in no time. Looking great.
Craig

Darren,
Nice work! Keep the pics coming. You inspire me...
Ray

Thanks everyone for nice comments. It gives me the motivation to continue trying to do my best instead of just throwing it together quickly.

Last weekend my friend Paul came back over and we worked on the underside some more. The car was rusted pretty bad so there are a lot of pits on the underside. I'm trying to fix the most visable ones but there are a lot that I just can't reach. The car was originally fully undercoated so I can always spray it if it doesn't turn out. I've got one more area that I need to fix and then it's done...the best that I know how anyway.

I realized on Saturday that there is no way to install the brake and fuel lines while the car is on the body stand. It looks like I'll be putting it back on my smaller stands sooner then I thought. I had hoped to undercoat the wheelwells while it was still up higher.

I talked to my boss the other day about using a forklift from work to lift the car off the stand. That's the only safe way I can think of to do it.(without hauling the car to a shop and using a hoist) Maybe right after the Mopar Nat's I can get that done.

The dash turned out great Darren. Looks awesome! Funny, the dash stand you built looks very similar to mine. It worked out good for me and looks like yours worked out good too.

Joe

The car came off the body stand yesterday. A guy from work came over with the "donkey" and lifted the car off the stand. I've been waiting for about 3 weeks for them to have a delivery close to my house. Now that the car is back on my stands, I can get the brake/fuel lines and gas tank installed before winter.

My new Accurate Exhaust system should be here today. Once the gas tank is in, I'll install the muffler heat shields. I might even hang the mufflers and over axle pipes.

Wow it looks sweet. Thanks for including the procedure and paints you used on the heater control panel BTW

Over the last week I installed the brake and fuel lines. I also installed the fuel tank yesterday. The lines are stainless and are from Fine Lines. They fit fairly well but needed some tweeking here and there. The tanks straps and J-bolts needed to be modified a little bit to fit in their mounts. Before the tank went in I bolted the shocks to their upper mounts and installed the passengers side over axle pipe hanger.

The exhaust hanger(Accurate) isn't 100% stock looking but it's close enough for me. The differences don't affect the function of the hanger. You can see that the original part used bolts to clamp onto the pipe where the new part uses carriage bolts and nuts. The lower strap is also different.


I preinstalled the vapor separator onto the new tank and made a new tank pad.


fuel tank and vapor separator installed


Once the fuel line connection was hooked up I installed the new muffler heat sheilds from Dales Cuda shop.

Looking good and nice job with the tank pad.

Darren your car is really looking Sweeeet!!!. First class job. You are building a car that is turning heads already. Keep up the good work.. I appreciate your help trying to work out the tough issues as well.