68 4-door "Sleeper"
I want to start wiring everything up, but I can't really start on that until I get the dashboard finished. I want to get the guages and switches in.
In an earlier post, I showed where I cut the sheet metal out of the dash. That way I could just start from scratch. I bought some sheet metal and took it to a local machine shop that had a sheet metal brake to put the bend in it. I welded it into place.
After grinding all the welds smooth, I decided to take the entire dash down to the bare metal by putting it into the blast cabinet.
I primed the entire dash with a urethane primer (Dupont Nason.. I think) to prevent it from rusting while I did the bondo work.
I spent a lot of time sanding and smoothing the bondo in the corners. I bought some hole saws to cut the holes for the guages. I put the big hole saw into a 1/2 inch drill and was drilling away. I had my head low so that I could see that the hole saw was level and not going in at an angle. All of the sudden, the hole saw snagged and came to a complete stop, but the drill didn't stop. It smacked me right in the lip. I ended up getting 3 stitches.
I am almost ready to paint the dash. My plan is to paint the part that you "see" the same blue as I am going to paint that car. The top of the dash will be flat black to reduce glare on the windshield. I painted the back side of the dash with some white Rustoleum. That way, it will reflect light when I work behind the dash after it is installed.
Here are the guages that I will be putting in. I got them from www.speedhut.com. The speedometer is GPS based, so I won't have to worry about cables and transmission gears and rear end gear ratios. The speedometer will also tell you top speed, quarter mile time, altitude(???), etc., and it has the turn signal indicators built in.
I also received my gas tank from Rock Valley. It has the fuel pump already installed and will provide the pressure necessary for the fuel injection.
That's all for now. Thanks for watching!
I want to start wiring everything up, but I can't really start on that until I get the dashboard finished. I want to get the guages and switches in.
In an earlier post, I showed where I cut the sheet metal out of the dash. That way I could just start from scratch. I bought some sheet metal and took it to a local machine shop that had a sheet metal brake to put the bend in it. I welded it into place.
After grinding all the welds smooth, I decided to take the entire dash down to the bare metal by putting it into the blast cabinet.
I primed the entire dash with a urethane primer (Dupont Nason.. I think) to prevent it from rusting while I did the bondo work.
I spent a lot of time sanding and smoothing the bondo in the corners. I bought some hole saws to cut the holes for the guages. I put the big hole saw into a 1/2 inch drill and was drilling away. I had my head low so that I could see that the hole saw was level and not going in at an angle. All of the sudden, the hole saw snagged and came to a complete stop, but the drill didn't stop. It smacked me right in the lip. I ended up getting 3 stitches.
I am almost ready to paint the dash. My plan is to paint the part that you "see" the same blue as I am going to paint that car. The top of the dash will be flat black to reduce glare on the windshield. I painted the back side of the dash with some white Rustoleum. That way, it will reflect light when I work behind the dash after it is installed.
Here are the guages that I will be putting in. I got them from www.speedhut.com. The speedometer is GPS based, so I won't have to worry about cables and transmission gears and rear end gear ratios. The speedometer will also tell you top speed, quarter mile time, altitude(???), etc., and it has the turn signal indicators built in.
I also received my gas tank from Rock Valley. It has the fuel pump already installed and will provide the pressure necessary for the fuel injection.
That's all for now. Thanks for watching!
