Removing mold, grime, lizard eggs, and eventually
restoring a dash.
Other than possibly under the hood, what is the one area
of a car that you spend the most time in? If you don’t think that it is the
interior, you need to drive your car more often. Even if a car looks great outside,
if the upholstery is worn or disgusting and the gauges are falling out of the
dash, it’s time to focus some
attention in that direction.
The work required to restore the dash depends on the
condition of the car. For instance, a car that’s been carefully cared for since
it was new will obviously need a lot less work than one found in a junkyard.
The switches and gauges on the dash might not even need to be fixed or replaced
in a well-cared-for car. One from a part’s car or junkyard on the other hand...
Our Project 50 ’69 Charger was not one of those
cared-for-all-of-its-life kind of cars. We’ve handled the extensive metalwork
on the body, and while the car is off at paint and body we thought we could work
on a few items to keep things moving along. For a brief few moments our ever
over-enthusiastic car owner felt that he might be able to handle the
restoration of the dash on his own. Luckily, he decided otherwise, and the hunt
was on to find a shop that could handle the quality of restoration that we were
after.
Our Project 50 ’69
Charger was not one of those cared-for-all-of-its-life kind of cars.
After some searching of forums and asking other competent
Mopar restoration guys, Mike Mancini and his crew of guys at Instrument
Specialties in North Kingston, Rhode Island, was who kept coming up in
conversation. Instrument Specialties is your one-stop shop when it comes to
dash restorations. They can handle everything from gauge rebuilding and plastic
replating to complete dash restorations. They can rebuild and restore every
component on your dash.
In our situation, we needed a lot of help. The dash in our
Charger was so bad that we needed to use two dashes to actually build one
complete dash. We might have surprised Mike and his crew by not divulging this
tidbit of information at first, but we figured they could handle it.
1.
Here’s the better of the two dashes that we needed to send to Instrument
Specialties for the restoration. The first dash was in the car when we dragged
it home. It really did take two dashes to build one for this project.
Here’s the better
of the two dashes that we needed to send to Instrument Specialties for the
restoration
2. Wrapping a blown
fuse with aluminum foil is asking for a disaster. Since we found this hint of
"engineering,” it is all the more reason that the guys will check all of
the wiring before the dash goes back in.
3. This is when we
realized that we would need another dash frame to complete our project.
4. With the dash
frame we’ll be using stripped, it’s time to remove the old paint and really get
a look at what we’re working with.
5. Here is where
paying attention to details pays off. Most guys will simply repaint the dash
frame and call it good. Instrument Specialties makes sure that a flawless
surface is created before the primer and paint go on.
Instrument
Specialties makes sure that a flawless surface is created before the primer and
paint go on.
6. Painting the
dash is more than just covering with color. If you use a paint that is too
glossy, reflections from oncoming lights can literally cause you to lose sight
of where you’re going for a moment. Use a paint that is too dull and the result
is an ugly dash. Instrument Specialties happens to have original textured,
suede-finish paint that gives your dash an OE look.
