Man, this has been a great project ! I have used little bits and pieces of everything in my tool box junk drawer to fab up all the brackets and mount the disappearing face radio where the heater controls used to be. The painting and detailing was tough but WOW is it worth it to see the finished product.

I am going to pull my sweep dash out next week and get everything straightened away behind the dash and then get this dood in there.

Here is what it looked like straight off eBay

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/old.JPG

And here is the finished dash graemlins/thumbsup.gif

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/new_front.JPG
http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/new_side.JPG
http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/PIC00004.JPG

Cya`

Tom

WOW!! Nice job, Tom!

tom thats a beautiful peice,curious what did you paint it with ,and how did you restore that silver pinstripping around the dash?

Tom

very nice!

im with johnny, what did you use for the silver striping? a silver paint pen?

i like the cd player install too, very stealthy.

I've been following the progress and quickly clicked on the thread when I saw "Dash Completed". I was pretty disappointed when I saw the first picture - but I sure am glad I scrolled down. Great Job! Love them before and after pics.

I restored my '68 dash just to stock and can imagine the work you put into it. Your dash looks great and is an inspiration - gotta figure out how to get some real gauges in mine...

I have used a satin black rattle can paint that is sold at OSH hardware stores. I have used this stuff for years and it always comes out great !

I've done the chassis, inner fenderwells, plastic, metal - everything with this stuff and it comes out perfect everytime.

For the silver I used the paint pens. One was a broad tip and the other was a very fine tip one for the very small areas. I used a regular paint brush on the outer edge area and followed it up with the smaller pens for the detail work.

I used the red bulb covers for the instrument lights so they come on with a great looking red glow.

The CD stereo extend a small strip with control buttons and then retracts while playing with just the graphic equalizer visible on the face. When you want to put in a CD the face drops down, you load it and it retracts again. Really cool stuff !

This is gratification at it's best ! This came out EXACTLY how I envisioned it from the start, but it was alot of work - about 7 weekends working at least 6 - 8 hours each day !

The greatest part of this is you look at it all the time every day that you're driving you car.

Thanks for the compliments !

awsome!

How did you go about mounting the large gauges in the oval bezel? Looks like you might have solvent-welded a piece of ABS for the fuel gauge mounting?

Great job on the outlining Tom, looks great graemlins/thumbsup.gif !!

Chris

Looks great. I did the same thing to the factory bezel in my 70'Cuda (http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/mild68ss/Dash2.jpg) last year.
I like the radio idea.
Your right the greatest thing is you get to look at it all the time while your driving.
P.S. the setup looks better in a 70 Chevelle then a 70 'Cuda. graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Here is a picture of the back side so you can get an idea how complex this project is. Although I probably made it a little more complex because I don't want to have to take this back out to fix something.

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/PIC00004.JPG

Actually, the large gauge holes are round - they just look oval because of the way they are viewed from the front. The top part is deeper than the bottom so it gives the impression they are oval.

As I said in earlier post - the hardest part about this was that I had to PUSH the gauges forward into the holes from the back. It would have been a breeze to just stick them through a hole and use the U clamps to hold them in.

I fabricated brackets to loop around the back of the gauge and used the nuts to push against the bracket forcing the gauge forward into the opening in the pod.

You can see in this picture how the studs coming out of the back of the gauge have the nuts BELOW the bracket rather than above it. Unscrewing the nuts pushes the gauge forward and basically traps it between the beacket and the opening of hte gauge hole.

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/PIC00002.JPG

For the large gauges I used the bar across the back to keep the speedo, & tach pushed forward. The bezels of the gauges are just a little smaller than the openings so they don't go through they rest against it. (the hose clamps were just there to hold the front bracket on for a mock up fit - they're not in it now graemlins/thumbsup.gif )

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/43.JPG

For the fuel gauge I used epoxy to attach a smaller hole for the gauge to go through and it was attached in the regular manner using the U shaped bracket to pull it through the opening and secure it with the nuts.

http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/PIC00021.JPG

I used a lot of plastic weld epoxy to strengthen the gauge pod and lock the bolts and screws in so they don't come loose. As a final measure after doing a complete checkout on all the gauges functions I used epoxy to brace the gauge housings so they don't vibrate loose over time.

Hope that answers a few of the questions ! Sorry for the bandwidth.

Cya`

Tom

Thanks!
This is exactly what I was looking for!

"""""BEAUTIFUL"""""

graemlins/thumbsup.gif

That looks great.It's refreshing to see somebody make something that looks great without hearing they dropped $2000 on it or something like that.