Refinishing dash center- How to??

[Keith B.]

I have a 66 and want to repaint or refinsh the dash center area(not the console, done that). Has anyone done this before?? My black dash pads are mint but the dash center area (not sure if this is right term guys) where the speaker grille, clock, radio are situated is discolored.

1) How do I get it out of the car (remove gauge cluster and dash pads, speaker grille, clock and radio) or is there an easier way??

2) Once out of the car, not sure what kind of material the dash center console is to repaint.

3) What is correct black paint, (flat, satin, semi) brand and type please.

I sincerely appreciate any assistance on this gentlemen.

Thank-you. Keith

[Stephen L.]

Re: Refinishing dash center- How to??

The entire dash comes out in one piece. DON'T try to remove the pads. They are held on by a special clip and you may damage the pad if you can't see the clips.

Remove the instrument cluster, glove box, radio, clock, heater controls etc.
Be careful with the defroster duct. the edges chip easily. I believe you can leave that and the speaker in-place until you get the dash out.

Remove the lower windshield trim. You will find some bolts that go thru the dash assy into the body cage. Remove them. Drill out the rivets that are on the end tabs in the door opening.

Now the fun part... the dash is epoxied in at the base below the radio. You may have one that's loose and it'll come apart. Mine was well epoxied so I used a flat wide stiff putty knife and worked it down behind the dash. It took some doing but the epoxy finally let go and the dash was loose.

I'm going to paint my dash with the pads in place as they are in good shape. Carefully mask them and things will be fine. I am using John Deere Blitz Black.
My interior is black and the body is Marina Blue. You'll need to get some new pop rivets. I painted a bunch when the car was painted as well as the dash "tabs". You could paint them on the car if you can find a good paint match. I'll put a piece of tape or rubber over the color on the rivet before I install them so they won't get scratched by the rivet tool

Good luck

[Wayne W.]

Re: Refinishing dash center- How to??

WOW, Thats a lot of trouble. I just paint them in the car. Saves about 30 hours and a lot of originality.

[Keith B.]

Re: Refinishing dash center- How to??

Thanks Steve, Incredible, that whole process scares the heck out of me. I think I'll leave it or consider Wayne's option of leaving same in place as it left the factory.

Anyone else out there done this or painted this area with it still in the car??

Cheers/Keith.

[Patrick H.]

Re: Refinishing dash center- How to??

We have the front window out of our 66 right now (body is almost stripped of everything and ready for paint removal) and decided that we will paint the dash in place as well. Our dash pads are in excellent shape, and why drill out the rivets if you don't have to? The ends of our dash still have original paint on them.

Patrick

[Dick W.]

Re: Refinishing dash center- How to??

Keith, I have to agree with Wayne. Just mask pads and other areas not to be painted. I use an airbrush to do detail work such as that. Saves a lot of time. I always go to my paint jobber and get him to mix the paint. Use his color charts

[Richard S.]

Re: Refinishing dash center- How to??

Keith,
Unless you need to take the dash out for some other reason, you do not have to go that far to paint the center console area. You can easily mask the dash pads and the rest of the interior and spray paint the center area. If it is a black interior, we used Krylon semi flat black and it came out perfect. One word of caution....you must clean the area to be sprayed very, very carefully before painting. If the area has had any kind of silicone applied at any time, such as Armorol, and it is not completely removed, the paint may fisheye right before your eyes. Lacquer thinner applied with a clean lint free cloth can help to prep the surface. Maybe someone else can add something here about preping the surface. You should spray in multiple thin coats allowing a few moments to dry between each coat. Avoid the temptation to spray too much paint at one time and it will turn out great. Give it a shot and let us know how it turns out.
Rick.

[Gordon Peterson #4961]

Re: Refinishing dash center- How to??

Hi Keith -

A previous owner of my '63 wanted to install a super sound system and "adapted" my dash frame to make it fit - resulting in a complete hack job. So I have gone the remove / repaint / re-install route. Yeah, it's a sort of a pain; in my case, I had the interior out anyway. But I've got to tell you, removing the stuff IN and AROUND the dash was a lot worse than removing the dash frame itself. Don't worry too much about the rivets. BUT read through the archives because some were painted and some were not. Easy enough to paint in place anyway. The bond at the base took a single whack with a long putty knife held through the radio opening. After I got the frame out, the dash pads were easy to remove and replace. They are held on by special clips (available as repros if you break one). You carefully expand them to remove them and re-squeeze them to install them. I reused all mine. See Fig. 13 Body page 1-8 in the '63 Shop Manual - no brainer. As for paint, remember that most of these dash frames are covered in textured vinyl. So I used special vinyl paint on mine. Does it matter? I figure the paint has added flexibility because my frame has been in the car for 25 years and still looks excellent - no chips, fade, flakes, nor scratches.

Pete

[Mike Cobine]

The Worse that can happen

is that you end up having to remove the dash. So you might as well start with an attempt to paint in the car.

Removing the dash will probably take you 20 minutes. Removing all the stuff that lets you remove the dash may take you all day. So start with the easy attempt, paint in the car.