WTF, It's the only thing I have pictures of that I haven't seen done... I had a '60 Corvair that I parted out 15 years ago, and I kept the dash, so it was always going to be part of my '46 Ford... I just needed to figure out how. I like it because it looks like a squashed Corvette dash, and fits the early 60's interior thing with the T-bird seats and Riviera console. The jukebox Ford dash is a little to deco to look right in a 60s style-d car. After doing some measuring and test fitting, the dash was going to have to be mated with the old dash to get the angles right, so I cut the center of the old dash out and test fit and cut the Corvair dash until it was at the right angle, facing the driver. This is about as far as I got... I was offered a 16 year old kid as an apprentice, so why not let him learn to weld and cut on the dash?!? Thanks Again Jeff... I don't know if he lurks, he's more of a motorcycle guy. I thought it would fit as is, but I wanted to keep the little pieces on the sides of the coves intact, so Jeff and I narrowed it 4". The bottom of the original dash was reused to cover a cross brace for the column drop. (drop not done in this pic), perfect place to put the headlight and other switches, and it'll bring the dash down closer to meet the console. The cross piece is 1x1 and I welded "L" brackets to meet up to some existing holes. We marked up the dash and I taught him the best I could how to tack weld sheet metal. The sides have yet to be done, but the ends will have hammer-formed curved "caps". This one is out of order, it shows the ugly column drop before the bottom piece was tacked on. It does show the extra glovebox door what will be holed sawed to put in SW gauges. Quicky coat of Weld-thru to make it presentable for last years Billetproof, but this shows the Corvair ashtray hole welded up, and the 2 '46 Ford ashtray holes that had to be closed up, this before filler. He was a busy 16 year old. Racked my neck up Sunday, so I stayed home with the scanner, Photoshop and my collection of gauges to come up with this: The inserts (REAL glovebox door, and certain areas of the console) will be mother of pear drum wrap, and the glovebox door surround will be nickel plated... just not anytime soon. That's all I have for tech week, and it's not finished yet, so I'm not even sure it qualifies.
Tach is going on the angled part of the console, where the glue residue is, also backed up by MOP insert....'bout the size of the speedo. It's an automatic, so the tach isn't critical, the shifter will come through the console the way the original did in the Rivi. There will be some slicing and dicing done to the console to make it work. The speedo is offset, because it's centered over the column (Sharpie mark)
The Jalopy Journal
