Mocajava
Well-Known Member
Just pulled the dash,column and brake assembly from my 69 Coronet and have a totally clean firewall. I have several different directions I am going but wanted to get the experts involved for my build. I am going for a rebuild ground up Coronet with better everything to somewhat replicate a Bee or an R/T. I want to throw a few questions out and forgive me for rambling:
1) I need to replace the dash pad on top, who makes good fitting parts for a fair price?
2) The lower pads are still good just nasty, dirty. Suggestions for what product cleans them the best with no damage?
3) I have seen several retro dashes done with after market gauges and love that idea! I would like to build my own dash insert with gauges without breaking the bank...who has a good gauges that are dependable and fairly straight forward to incorporate? Will an aftermarket wiring harness vendor be able to make me a harness with specific set-ups for those gauges and how they operate with my drive train...who to use that people are happy with?
4) This Coronet came with factory air, I pulled the total box yesterday. Everything was hooked up but not pressured so I don't know if it all worked. I have been told I can use the existing system but just delete the AC part as all I want are heat, defrost and vents to work. Does that mean I need to rebuild the entire system (controls, vacuum system, cores...etc) to use it as I need? There seems to be a lot of that component that is made for the operation of the AC and still must be fixed to make the heat , defrost and vents operational.
I should probably have made three diferent threads for these aspects but some of them tie in with each other. I am trying to determine my "end product" by the amount of difficulty, limitations on my own skill sets and end cost vs my limited budget for this future plan. Having a good idea of what I want for an end result gives me definate steps for the plan of attack. I have done the helter/ skelter, build-as-you-go direction before and the end result costs twice as much time and money plus it looks like you did it that way! Your thoughts would be helpful and much appreciated.
1) I need to replace the dash pad on top, who makes good fitting parts for a fair price?
2) The lower pads are still good just nasty, dirty. Suggestions for what product cleans them the best with no damage?
3) I have seen several retro dashes done with after market gauges and love that idea! I would like to build my own dash insert with gauges without breaking the bank...who has a good gauges that are dependable and fairly straight forward to incorporate? Will an aftermarket wiring harness vendor be able to make me a harness with specific set-ups for those gauges and how they operate with my drive train...who to use that people are happy with?
4) This Coronet came with factory air, I pulled the total box yesterday. Everything was hooked up but not pressured so I don't know if it all worked. I have been told I can use the existing system but just delete the AC part as all I want are heat, defrost and vents to work. Does that mean I need to rebuild the entire system (controls, vacuum system, cores...etc) to use it as I need? There seems to be a lot of that component that is made for the operation of the AC and still must be fixed to make the heat , defrost and vents operational.
I should probably have made three diferent threads for these aspects but some of them tie in with each other. I am trying to determine my "end product" by the amount of difficulty, limitations on my own skill sets and end cost vs my limited budget for this future plan. Having a good idea of what I want for an end result gives me definate steps for the plan of attack. I have done the helter/ skelter, build-as-you-go direction before and the end result costs twice as much time and money plus it looks like you did it that way! Your thoughts would be helpful and much appreciated.
