[Shiny]

Nice work! That looks great. Hope the wiring goes well.

[pontiacman63383]

Originally Posted by Shiny

Nice work! That looks great. Hope the wiring goes well.

Originally Posted by onetirefire

Amazing keeping this thread alive over the restoration.
Nice work.

Thanks guys. Its definitely been a looooooong slow road with this car but she's coming along. Getting it running and moving under its own power was such a huge motivator. I've made more progress in the car over the last two-ish since I got it moving under its own power then I did in previous 10 years before that lol.

[pontiacman63383]

Got everything wired up. Installed a new dash cap because i cant justify spending 1200 bucks on a new dash. Overall the cap looks decent. Fit is far from perfect and you can definitely tell its a cap if you look at it for a bit but from a distance it looks good so for 200 bucks im happy with it. Dash is back in the car and everything is wired up and working good. Also made a custom mount for under seat fire extinguisher. Just in case!

[pontiacman63383]

So small update and then a bit of a tease for the big upgrade in the works. So after getting the dash looking good and the new gauges in and looking good i had to do something about the old wore out factory steering wheel. So go a nice leather wrapped black momo steering wheel. Im happy with it. Gives the interior a nice clean look. So the next big upgrade for the car showed up. Super excited to get his bad boy in the car!....

[pontiacman63383]

So while waiting on a few things for the big upgrade i have planned here soon i decided to shift focus and see what i can do about the headlights on this car. So it is a custom S but i dont care for the chrome bumper and decided to add the gto bumper with hideaway headlights. I got the "custom S" badge mounted in the grill where the "gto" badge would normally. With my engine i don't have a lot of vacuum and don't want to mess with all of the vacuum pods on the hideaway set up so i decided im going to make them electric. Luckily being a pontiac fan i just happen to have a 4th gen firebird parts car so i decided to fit the motors and controller onto the bumper. Mocked up a bracket and i may have to tweek the arm off the motor but in initial test fit was very promising. They open and clos(though they stop just shy of fully opening by about an 1" so ive still got to do some adjustments. Over happy with it and wont need to mess with any of the vacuum stuff now.

https://youtube.com/shorts/DAQEOqmIf...uYFFcZQa1AwpKm

[grivera]

Originally Posted by pontiacman63383

So small update and then a bit of a tease for the big upgrade in the works. So after getting the dash looking good and the new gauges in and looking good i had to do something about the old wore out factory steering wheel. So go a nice leather wrapped black momo steering wheel. Im happy with it. Gives the interior a nice clean look. So the next big upgrade for the car showed up. Super excited to get his bad boy in the car!....

This is a great thread - appreciate you keeping it updated

How difficult was it to install the dash cap? Are you happy with it? Any more pics of it from other angles?

[pontiacman63383]

Originally Posted by grivera

This is a great thread - appreciate you keeping it updated

How difficult was it to install the dash cap? Are you happy with it? Any more pics of it from other angles?

Thanks! Its definitely been a slow but fun process. As far as the dash cap goes, overall I'm happy with it. That being said this will never be a show car. Not even close so my expiations of the cap were not high to begin with as I didn't need to to be perfect. So the install wasn't terrible but definitely took a lot of time and double checking. So it was an e-bay special. The overfit was ok. The biggest problem was it was a very tight fit over the old dash so it keep wanting to pop up in spots. luckily I've got a large collection of 5lb lead weights so i used a bunch of those as well as a lot of tap to hold everything down and in place and even with that I still had a spot on the top of the dash that didnt hold. I was able to re-glue it so it all sits flat now. I will say that they cut the holes around things like the vents and cluster short of actually touching the pieces so you can see a bit of the old dash spots. I guess you could technically install this with the dash in the car but with the issues I had trying to keep it all flat on the dash and in place I would absolutely remove the dash for install. So my overall option. It looks great if you just walk by and look in the car and it absolutely looks way better the the busted up old dash. Even when driving it and are looking at it from the drivers seat I say it looks good but It is far from perfect. So if little issues bother you or you are looking for a really good looking dash I would pass but if you want a decent looking drivers quality dash for 250-ish bucks and not shell out 1k to have your dash redone it's definitely a good option. I've added a few pics to show the close up fitment. Can get more if your want a particular view of it