nice, i like that alot

 

yeah you'll be to bizzy lookin at that going yeah did a good job then that tree will run out in front of ya lol

 

Hmm . . . maybe I should have had him sign a release before I installed those guages . . .

 

Wow, did anybody make it out alive ?

 

Ummm, unless you too are willing to sell your young body to old men for cash you might want to take a pass, fishy.




Seriously Ivan, good work man That looks awesome! I'm jealous too...I'm just not willing to sacrifice my o-ring for bling!

 

Alright hosers (geez, who am I starting to sound like??? ) I put it all together tonight so you could see how the finished project is supposed to look. I used the carbon fiber finish but it didn't turn out as nice as I hoped, mostly because I have no skilz. But it's not too bad and considering this whole thing will be covered in mud soon I don't think it matters much. The bumps you see around the edge are where the mounting screws go. I didn't put them all in for the pics because I'm lazy. Obviously there are no switches installed yet but they'll all go in that bling aluminum panel to the left of the guages. I threw the dash pad on (now colored buckskin) to get a better idea of how it would look. All in all I'm pretty happy with the results. I still need to build a bracket to hold the auxilary light box in place and I need to build my glove box but that's about it. Once I have my truck wired this will be pretty much ready to install. My MSD ignition and timing control box are going in the cab, behind the dash, and I'm thinking about placing my new fuse box behind the glove box with a pull out panel to access them. But I'm not 100% set on that yet. For now I'm going to play with wires and wait for the other 2 guages to arrive.

 

I think it looks great. But whats up with that steel lower colmn cover, I thought your truck was a 78 / 79 ?

 

My truck is a 78 but the dash is from an older truck. I hate the plastic column covers . . . they're shoddy looking. If this cover doesn't fit my column I'll use the plastic cover until I change to a columm without the auto shifter in it.

 

Simply awesome. Your gonna have to watch it though, I don't want you to be the first guy I know who got his truck broken into just so they could steal your dash...

 

I have a solution for that. If I lift my truck enough so nobody can see in the windows it shouldn't be a problem. I was actually planning to use a torx secutiry screw for the dash but they only make them in a machine screw and that was more work than I was up for. I could almost see somebody getting in there and pulling the whole panel, leaving with $870 in guages , a stereo, etc. But there are a LOT of screws in it so it would take some time.

 

you did a great job that looks real good

 

definetly a job well done,

 

looks like your coming along great. been a while since I looked in this thread. but you have given me a few nice ideas.

Did you use a hole saw on the tach and speedo?

 

Yes, I used a 4.5" holesaw and then a rasp and drum sander to open them up slightly. Autometer calls for a 4 5/8 hole but they don't make a holesaw in that size and the 4 3/4 saw I had cut them just a little too big, where the guage is sloppy in there.

This could be done quite easily with aluminum or stainless (or sheetmetal for that matter if you don't respect the bling). I've got a sheetmetal brake and experimented a little bit with it. Looks pretty trick and then you can just paint it up when all the holes are cut.

 

Very nice job on that dash ivan. Now you need to go get a patent on it and go sell it to big company like JC wihtney or LMC trucks and make some money off of it.