Cleaning up the instrument panel

I just purchased a 72 Runner and going head first into a lot of small projects.
One of the first projects is sorting out and cleaning up the panel. The car seems to runs and drive fine, but I wanted to replace the IMO ugly grant GT steering wheel (and the horn doesnt meep meep, so thats a priority!!), so among a few other projects I started by purchasing a tuff wheel with the adaptor. Digging further and further... I know you all know how it goes, since I have the wheel off, might as well check out converting the old auto on the column collar with something more correct for my console shift converted car.
Then it was might as well pull the instrument panel, since I cant stand the ugly wood grain and been thinking about painting it gray. I know Im in good company about the fake grain. Even John Herlitz hated it. For those of you wincing about me messing up a perfectly good roadrunner, I hear you, but my car had a blue interior, and now its black. Frankly, I like the black, and I dont want to start changing it back, so loss of the original color on the panel is no big deal. Anyways, now I have everything out and started cleaning and polishing things up. I dodnt realize how messed up the instrument lenses were until I looked at them at a light. Before and after below after about 5 minutes polishing with plastic headlight polish with a buffing wheel on a drill.
Yeah, Im exciting on a saturday night with the wife out of town:


And a picture of the panel itself. Actually very clean, so just some compressed air to blow out dust, and very light cleaning, ordered some new led bulbs, and should start putting it back soon. Of course after I tear down more of the dash, which is cracked, but think I will just install a cap. After all, Ive come this far.


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Oh, and almost forgot, next step is pulling the dash insert on the passenger side. Need to for proper fitment of the dash cap, and I need to paint it to match the instrument panel anyway. Going to use the silver/chrome paint as recommended for all the surround trim after the dove gray color paint drys. Got a rattle can of colorbond interior vinyl and plastic paint for the gray, and a marker applicator for the surrounds. I heard it works well and is durable.
Ill let you know how many times that insert makes me curse.

It's the little stuff, that completes the big picture. Keep it up.

Looks real good. Did you put in a new gasket set? The foam ones? Also, when I had mine apart, I repainted the needles on all the gauges with fluorescent orange paint pen. Just a suggestion while you have it apart. Also, for the silver trim, a silver leafing paint pen from Hobby Lobby works real well also.

Looking good on the refresh.

Also so I like the idea of the silver leaf pen from hobby lobby. That's a brilliant idea!

Here was my end result.

Got the silver "leaf" felt tip pen for the trimming, and decided not to touch up the needles since they still look great. Likewise the gasket. Still decent shape.
Im still in the process of cleaning everything and Ive moved inside the dash. I found a rusted through hole up in the windshield cowl area down below where the dash vin tag is located. Trying my best to shore up that area. This weekend most of my parts should have arrived, like the dash cap, instrument led's, spray paints like the sem trim, etc. I hope to start putting things back together then.
Tonight I finished painting and installed my dixco hood tach. Still need to wire it in though, but it looks good.

Pictures of the the painted dash. First sprayed the bezel inside trim black, then masked the openings and sprayed the gray, then used the silver pen. The silver bezels looks better in person. Light bounces off the shiny surfaces differently because those edges are not perfectly flat. Maybe I should have ground them down a little. Plus the silver paint doesnt lay perfectly flat either, so I dont think it matches the original. Oh well.


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Closeup of the odometer. Looks pretty clean. Maybe I should put a couple drops of marvel oil?



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And the ammeter. Im surprised how clean it looks. Maybe the car really does have only 32k miles?
So I can bypass it by just bridging the two posts, instead of disconnecting the two wires and connecting them? I guess a bridge accomplishes the same thing




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PS
I just realized, I can make it have as many miles as I want!
:eusa_shifty::no:

32k is pretty awesome enough. No need to change that..... Plus you'd never forgive yourself.

How about a picture of the whole car? Link me to the John Herlitz reference. Your work is looking good.

Found it. Im disappointed I cant find my copy of the mag. I read the article at least twice, but heres a link. His "god awful" comment about the wood grain is on the next to last page. Apparently the March 2015 edition of Mopar Action.

http://www.roadrunnernest.com/forum...runnernest.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5968

btw, anyone know what color astratone is? I remember searching and not finding anything, but its probably some sort of argent/metallic type color.

I decided the dove gray was blah. Looked like primer, so I did some looking around, and decided what I thought might look most like "astratone" whatever that is, and I picked up a color call gray steel.
This is going to be my end result. IMO looks a LOT better. Now to do the insert.

Who knows what this is. I found it unplugged. Circled in red.


And yes I noticed the melted wire jacket. The two wires were actually welded together. I peeled them apart and taped them for now. Planning on a starter relay bypass and headlight relay upgrade real soon!

I dont have the a/c, radio, hood tach or speedo hooked up yet, but decided to drive it a few blocks today. Hadnt started it up in 3 weeks and needed my fix.

The circled item is the condenser that saves the points inside of a points-type 5 Volt regulator. If yours was converted to solid state it won't hurt , but ,you technically do not need to connect it. If yours is still points-type, it will burn the points without it.

I sometimes convert my regulators to solid state. The regulator IC has a specific capacitance that is required right at the output pin. I hide that inside the case and check the condenser for low leakage. Then I hook the known-good condenser up too. That way anybody snooping under my dash is none the wiser! ��

So the relay-looking box nearby converts from 12v to 5v for a few of the instruments? I noticed a separate wire connecting it to the temp gauge and oil gauge, and also the fuel gauge IIRC, though my chart in the manual doesnt show it connecting to the fuel gauge. In the electric section it was suggested it has something to do with radio interference? Regardless, I dont think anything has been converted, so, where does it plug in to?

Well done Sir!

I would suggest before painting the bezel you should first sand it down so it's flat instead of leaving it with the faux woodgrain surface. I do like the color with the black interior though.

I would also suggest upgrading the stock instrument bulbs to LEDs while you've got everything torn down. They are much nicer at night.

I'm also wondering how that would look with the white gauge faces...

I installed the 4-led white lights and may switch back. They dont seem bright enough

They were much brighter than the incandescents that were in my car, and everyone else has said they looked brighter on theirs. I wonder why yours would be different? Stupid question, but is your brightness control turned all the way up?

Turned all the way up.
Maybe I need to bypass the ammeter worse than I thought. They could be only getting 8 or 9 volts.
I am ordering the bypass kit for starter relay and headlights from Rob Yule. His kits are great, and will definitely give me more volts for dash lights. Made a huge difference in my cuda
Before and after

Photo in day time

tommyg29 said:

Turned all the way up.
Maybe I need to bypass the ammeter worse than I thought. They could be only getting 8 or 9 volts.
I am ordering the bypass kit for starter relay and headlights from Rob Yule. His kits are great, and will definitely give me more volts for dash lights. Made a huge difference in my cuda
Before and after

Do you have any pics on how those white guages look in day time? Just curious. Might add them to my Plymouth.

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Do you have any pics on how those white guages look in day time? Just curious. Might add them to my Plymouth.

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