70 dash pad ?

[jeffandre]

Installed new OER dash in my 71 last year. I put a lot of time into it, decided not to try it in a weekend, instead since the car was sitting for years I spent hours strategizing, doing Google research for others tips, and went real slow. The pad did not fit the lower plastic assembly very well, had to drill and screw together the area above the radio to make it fit pretty good. I did a lot of tweaking with the pad to get it to fit that lower part.

The pad did not fit against my dash cowl very tight, mostly okay but had to do some extra tweaking here too. I had to use the shortest clips, make a few of my own for a nice snug fit, came out pretty good. I also had to redrill most of the clips to move the dash closer to the cowl.

Installing the plastic piece under the steering column was a challenge as it did not fit good enough to the pad until I added some more screws to pull it together in the ashtray area. It also didn't line up that great as far as being centered under the column, had to use loosen the entire dash pad again and shim it over, then retighten everything, fit much better and looks pretty good.

The gauge carrier fit okay, but after working it for a while without applying too much pressure I was able to get it screwed into position pretty good. I did have to redrill a few holes to get everything looking right with the carrier. I also had to do some cutsom fitment work on the gauge assembly too, it did not line up well with the carrier.

There are probably other things I did that I cannot remember now, but overall I bet I spent 50+ hours on putting together and installing the dash and associated parts. I cursed myself at first for not trying to buy a good used dash but in the end with all of the extra tweaking the dash looks really good and I am happy with it (I am a perfectionist, some people might not have had to spend as much time and effort as I did). If you are good with your hands, don't mind improvising with mount and fitting things together you will be fine. Again it is much better if you don't need to drive the car for a while, that way you don't get in a hurry and break something. Good luck,