C2 67 Dash

[Stephen L.]

I just removed the dash assy from my 67 in prep for paint. This assy was installed AFTER the body went through the paint shop at GM as there is exterior color paint under the rivet area and it is also shown and stated in NOLAN ADAMS Restoration Book that is was installed after completion of painting.

Question: When did the rivets and "ears" get painted "body color" if the body had already left the paint shop?

Nolan is inconsistent in his book on this subject and has no GM photos, that I can find, to back up the "painted ears" statement. His pictures of painted ears are all at car shows or similiar functions judging on the background activity of the photos. One picture of unpainted ears appears to be of a new vehicle.

I find it hard to believe that GM would go back with a color paint on every vehicle after it left the paint area to mask and paint these pieces.... just doesn't sound logical to me, especially when only about 1 inch of the dash overlaps the pillar post rivet area. Any comments????

[Michael H.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

Steve,

After the body was completely painted, the instrument panel with pads was installed in the car and the end tabs and rivits were masked and painted body color. Just about every 63-67 car went through this process, the exception being 65-67's with matching interior/exterior colors. Traces of body color are nearly always visible on the edge of the pad. Masking the pad after the entire assembly was installed was a little time consuming but it was still the most logical sequence for assembly. Installing the pads after the panel is installed is difficult and much more time consuming than just masking the pad.

Michael

[Stephen L.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

Michael, My question is really were they painted or not. The body had already left the paint area and many items were installed before the dash and pad assy. I believe things such as the firewall insulation, pedal assy, heater box, air vents etc..... things that would be easier to install without the dash in place...were installed. You are telling me that they painted the dash ears someplace in the final assy area, not in the paint area. I would venture to say that even the wiring harness was installed on the completed dash with instruments and glovebox before the dash was installed in the car. The ears had to be painted after that point in the assy process. Pretty risky... painting during final assy and fresh paint in that assy area.

[Michael H.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

Steve,

You are correct. The tabs were painted well after many major components were installed in the car. If you think about the way the entire piller was painted, there's body color under the tabs so we know the dash panel was not in the car at the time of body paint but there's always paint on the edge of the dash pad so we know the pads were installed on the dash panel prior to the tab paint. The rivits are also painted so that tells us that the entire dash assembly was installed in the car at the time the tabs were painted.

If the dash pad was masked by hand, I would say it would be very time consuming soI would guess there was some pre formed mask or shield that may have been held in place during the tab paint operation. Just a guess on this.

[Wayne W.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

Have faith and believe Steve. It might sound illogical, but it happened, unless it wasn`t a contrasting interior color. The old hats here know it is so. There were some other items painted at the same time, like the edge of the interior quarter cover.

[Stephen L.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

Wayne, I guess I'll just have to have faith. I can see where the interior quarter edge was masked and painted in the paint booth at the same time the upper doors and rear window surround and fender/firewall/etc were blackout painted. At that point there were no "finished" assemblies installed yet and the body was still in the paint area of the plant.

[Tom H.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

Steve- This is similar to all the other Corvette mysteries. I just wish there were some assembly line workers left who actually built some of these cars sart to finish. One of the most interesting puzzles is why would a company which in the interest of "economies" used the front end components from a 63 Chevy sedan in the C2 project then tool up to build a reported miniscule number of L89's, L88's etc. and most interestingly "how is it that L89's seem to be a dime a dozen on B-J?" the parts had to come from somewhere even if the cars are counterfeits. The peculiar thing about this hobby is that 35 to 40 years ago nobody gave a rats ass abount keeping them pristine and damn few people had the foresight to see that they would become highly valued. Hence...few people kept all the original paperwork etc. I would venture a guess that a C1/C2 with genuine continuous paper work is as rare as the aforementioned L88/L89's. Happy Sleuthing!!

[Stephen L.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

There is a shred of documentation in NOLAN ADAMS Restoration book. He has 2 photos on page 99 that show the none painted tabs with the caption "Since the instrument panel was installed after the body had been painted, its end tabs were usually left unpainted. On occasion, however, the tabs were touched-up to match the body color." Another photo shows the end tabs painted while the rivets "appear to have been masked" OR... possibly this was a dash of a color matching the exterior... in which case the dash had been painted prior to pad assy and just riveted in place. In both cases the rivets were not black anodized finish, rather standard aluminum pop rivets.

Now here is another senario... Before the dash was assembled GM knew the color of the interior/exterior combination. The tabs could have been painted body color before the padding was installed. This would account for the painted tabs but NOT painted rivets. However I don't believe that is the case because I cannot find any body color under the pads (Blue Body/black dash)

I recently removed my dash from the body. I found that the rivets, were indeed,
"Black anodized" after drilling the heads off and inspecting the backside of the heads. I also found that there was no exterior color on the dash tabs. How did I find this? My car was originally Marina blue. A previous owner repainted the car Marlboro maroon. He painted the tabs.
20 years ago when I purchased the car I stripped the Maroon...finding Marina blue underneath. I repainted it blue as well as the tabs.
I just completed doing a test on the tabs. I was able to remove my 20 yr layer of blue revealing the maroon but under the maroon the color was black... not the original blue that I would have expected from the factory. I know this area was not stripped before the maroon coat, because the door jambs still have original blue under the maroon. I believe that I can conclude that my tabs were not painted blue by the factory because the interior was standard black including the dash and no blue was found. Interesting..........

[Stephen L.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

I just found some additional information concerning the dash tabs...

A previous owner had sent me pictures taken in 1971 when the car was originally blue. One of the photos showed the dash tabs... Yup! I was wrong again... the tabs were blue then and I"ll paint 'em blue again. It was a long way around but I finally convinced myself......

[Wayne W.]

Re: C2 67 Dash

I am glad that you are finally convinced.

[Stephen L.]

Re: C2 67 Dash Thanks Wayne *NM*