I worked on the nightmare dash pad today. Lots of work, not sure if there was a better way, but interior trim is not my strong point.
The trim ring slips in and then part of the air vent get fashioned to the studs on one end and screwed into the dash on the other. Not even close to aligning. The green arrows show how much farther it needs to go and the slot is out of adjustment.
This is a mock up as it is. Vent can't even be adjusted.
I had to carve away the foam as well as lengthen the slots in the dash vent retainer.
Not centered perfect but much better. This is as good as it gets without moving the mounting studs, which is beyond my ability.
The vent is likely to point toward the passenger anyway, so the alignment problem is even less noticeable.
This guy was painful to install, the cutout was not marked properly and took a lot of cutting and trimming to get it to fit well.
Cut slots in the pad for the metal retaining clips. Since the pad is foam and plastic, these clips are not retained too good, but will work.
It appears that will all the clips installed and with screws installed, the pad will stay in place and will look good, but is not nearly as secure as the factory pad.
It appears that the dash pad sold by OPG is not the same one sold by Performance Years and AMES. The PY/AMES listing talks about a fiberglass core. This dash is simply foam pressed between two thick sheets of stiff plastic that was molded into shape.
If I had know how bad the repro dash pad was, I might have sent my original dash to "Just Dashes". Still when bought on sale, this dash was only $249. I hear "Just Dashes" gets about $1000 to rework a 68 GTO Dash.
I failed to paint the retaining clip for the glove box door. I guess its just a well since I ended up grinding away part of the bracket to keep it from scraping. Every attempt to bend the bracket just didn't quite work. I removed about 1/32" along the blue line. I also ground a little bit on the dash opening. I think this flaw probably existed since the car was built.
I guess I should mention that the center AC Vent installed without problems.
