1952-59 Ford 56 Gets a new stainless dash panel

Some of you may have read my topic on this from a couple of months ago. I wanted to use a set of autometer antique gauges. The gauges literally fall through the gauges holes in the 56 panel.

So I was trying to figure out a good way to make it work, cheap and easy was the goal.

First I tried plexigl***, painted it, it worked ok, but not the best.

I took a large piece of construction paper and made a template. Then I put that template on a piece of poster board and traced it, cut it out. I had a friend copy that template onto a piece of stainless and cut it out for me and CNC the gauge holes so the new autometer gauges would fit. I still have to drill the blinker holes and high beam hole, but that will be the easy part.

Total cost to me was $8 on a hole saw blade I ruined trying to cut holes. This is a THICK piece of stainless, and made no progress after an hour and it ate up the bi-metal hole saw blade.

Now I just have to decide if I want to paint the panel while the dash is being painted, or engine turn it. I am leaning towards painting it, it doesnt seem to blend well with the gauge color.

What do you think?

BEFORE



AFTER



GAUGES INSTALLED

 

I've used wrinkle black on guage panels before and I really liked it. It blends well with all other colors and looks very professional in my opinion. Let us know what you decided to do, okay?

Eric

 

i think it looks good,i really like alluminum(not sure if spelt right)
spun look that see on some stainless door panels.
That's my 2 cents

 

I never updated this with the final product, I ended up priming and painting to match the dash.



This one is not a great pic, but I wanted to show the LED blinker and headlight bulbs I installed

 

Ron ( raceron) had me put a set of similar SW Vintiques in his dash. They fell through the dash holes also. What I did was install the original chrome bezels in the dash, then take the "U" bracket they give with the gauge, cut it in half, reverse it, then put another right angle bend in it. From the side it looks like: straight, 90 deg bend straight up, then another 90 bend to the right, straight again. You dimension the bends so the gauge will install just below the gl*** of the bezel. You can use most of the old tapped holes from the original gauges to install the new brackets, and you'll have to drill a couple to use metal screws to attach the others. The brackets will let you move the gauge around a little to center it in the bezel. Because I grounded each gauge to the cast piece that the original gauges installed to, I ran a seperate ground wire from that casting directly to the body, attaching the ground wire to the bracket that supports the dash behind the cluster.