[70vert]

I bought one of the first Covan dashes for a 70 Chevelle after seeing pictures here. Thought I'd post some information for others. First, it looks great sitting on a bench. Comes with a diagram showing where to cut your existing dash. I received no other instructions but figured how bad can it be...
I cut the heck out of my existing dash so now there is no turning back. What I found is that there are several areas that don't appear as if they will ever line up. The most notable is the vent on the lower left side of the dash. The Covan hole is a good 5/8" to the left of the existing vent. Second is the depth of certain areas of the Covan part. It is essentially an overlay and isn't thick enough to support the weight of switches and heater controls. The problem is in the shape of the Covan part. For example, when the lower edge is bottomed out on the existing dash, the hole in the Covan dash for the wiper switch and heater controls is way too far out. I will be contacting Covan but thought I'd run it by you guys and see if anyone else has installed one yet. I'm going to try cutting more areas on my dash to try and get this thing to seat flush. Doesn't look good so far.

 

[jnorth]

Originally posted by 70vert:
I'm going to try cutting more areas on my dash to try and get this thing to seat flush. Doesn't look good so far.

You better contact them before you go to much further. If you cut too much then you may not be able to reuse that dash at all .

 

[mojowrkn]

I saw Covan's entire line this past weekend at AutoFair in Charlotte. Quite honestly, I wasn't real impressed. While it is a beautiful piece it is very flimsy. By this I mean the material is very thin and it seems like it would be very easy to break during installation. There is no way I could justify the price, with or without the gauges. Just my .02.

 

[70vert]

Jim brings up a good point. Warning to others: Any cut you make will prevent you from going back. All cuts are to the face of the dash and impossible to hide. The problem is is that it's difficult to see if it will fit without cutting, as the back of the overlay hits the uncut part of the dash. Bobby is right about it being thin. It is meant to attach to the face of your existing dash and not meant to stand alone. I was looking in a catalog last night and noticed that the left side vent was a different part for 70 and 71, maybe that's part of my problem...

 

[70vert]

If anyone is still reading this far back, I bought an SS dash to replace my ruined Malibu dash. I layed the Covan insert on it and it looks like it was designed to work on the SS dash. I will probably cut the SS dash to see if the Covan works. The SS dash has issues already so it won't be a total waste. I'll post an update when I have news.

 

[jnorth]

Yeah I don't understand the reason that they make one for the SS dash but not the Malibu dash. Seems like most people would rather cut up a Malibu dash then an SS dash.