68 GT convertible project
Here's an update on the dash. So far everything is going OK. Not perfect but OK. I had the frame blasted and the patch finish welded.
I smoothed out the repair with filler and sprayed the frame with Rustoleum fine texture paint. I wasn't happy with how the top looked so I stripped it back to bare metal, put a coat of filler on and sanded it back down. It looks much better now.(I thought the minor pitting would be hidden by the textured paint but it wasn't)
I cleaned and sprayed the lower pads with SEM Landau Black. If repros were available I'd replace them. There is some waviness in the vynal but there are no cracks. The upper pad fit decent. It should look good in the car. There is a slight hump in the middle that isn't laying flat against the frame. The ash tray was hanging really low. I ended up adding some spacers between the frame and the ash tray mount to raise it up about an 1/8". It tucks up nicely now.
I cleaned up the main dash harness and replaced some ends that were chewed up by mice. Overall the harness was in really good shape. The new speakers fit nicely. There is plenty of clearance for the heater controls. I had to add two layers of foam to the top of the bracket to take up the gap between the bracket and the frame.
I'm pretty much at a stopping point right now. I need to send the radio off for an FM conversion and I need to buy new dash bezels.
I'm not happy with the white gauge overlays. The vinyl didn't stick to the raised letters/numbers on the upper panel. I think I'm going to machine off all the raised sections, smooth them out flat and then reinstall the white gauge face. It looks OK in the light but when the dash lights are on, it really looks bad.