[Terry M. Hunt]

Doing some dash replacement/repair on my ‘66 GTO with a/c. due to heavy rust at base of windshield. Using an entire cowl section removed from a ‘66 Lemans for needed sheet metal. I originally thought the Lemans dash/firewall were identical to the GTO because the Lemans dash had the same eyeball vents at the ends of the dash as the GTO. Now I notice the GTO has a huge rectangular hole in the passenger side of firewall where evap fits into cowl. The Lemans only has about a 5 inch hole in this same area of the firewall, indicating this car did not have a/c So, did non a/c cars have the dash eyeball vents also? Just trying to be sure this Lemans dash is going to be identical to my GTO dash before I weld it in place.

[hgerhardt]

Nope, non-AC 66’s did not have eyeball vents. Take a look at the holes for the eyeball vents in the non-AC donor car to see if they were hacked by hand... plus what were they plumbed to?

Also, another difference is the RH kick panel sheet metal. The AC cars had a different shape to accommodate the evap outlet, so there’s more to it than just the big hole on the RH firewall.

[Terry M. Hunt]

Mystery solved. Took a closer look at the donor cowl section from the Lemans. Somebody had pop riveted a piece of aluminum over the large vertical opening in the firewall where the evaporator fits into the cowl. They then cut the small round hole into this block off plate that non a/c cars have for the heater blower box. Can’t believe I missed this when looking at it previously. Anyway, donor dash from this piece is going to make a very nice repair on my rusted GTO.