Dashboard replacement

[scalebowler]

The past two days my friend and I have been working on replacing the dashboard in my car. The one that came with it was a dark blue color and since it is a dark color it absorbed all the heat from the sun and severly warped to the point where it could not be fixed (after we pulled it out we found that it was way beyond saving and that there was no way I was going to get that to flatten out) so about last friday or saturday my dad and I went to a local junkyard and found a dashboard from a Chrysler New Yorker and although it was a different color I decided that it was in the best shape of any of the cars that I could find and that the color combonation was actually not too bad so after spending 2 hours removing it I had a new dashboard to install. I later told my friend about the dashboard and he asked when I was going to install it and if he could help so I said yes and decided on yesterday so at 11am we got to work. Everything went pretty smooth and after about 3 to 4 hours and a few little snags and about 40 pictures later we had the old dashboard out and sitting on a table next to the new dashboard ready to have its parts swapped out. Believe it or not that was the easy part and we had all the wires and air ducts swapped out in about 20 minutes. Only problem we ran into there was one wire broke off of a connector that hooked up to something in the steering column but luckely we found out that the connectors were meant to be dissassembled and the individual pins in the connector could be replaced but not knowing where to find these parts we just settled on uncrimping the connector and then recrimping and soldering the terminal back onto the wire and now it is holding very well. Then came time to reinstall the dashboard. By then the sun was going down but we kept working and eventually got the dashboard attached to the car and secured. Then ran into the problem of the shift indicator wire not hooking up right and after some frustration I just decided to quit and start again the next day (it was about 11:30pm by now). The next day after I got home from class I dropped the steering column again and figured out my error with the shift indicator. Turns out the mounting screw for the guide is both a mounting piece and controls the tension of the wire (I was just trying to screw the part on and wondering why there was no tension on the wire) so after getting that fixed I put everything back together and fired it up to see if everything still worked. It did and now I have a dashboard that does not restrict my vision and looks nice.

[scalebowler]

Here are a few other pics of the removal and instalation process

[scalebowler]

Had to remove the Dynasty badge from the old dashboard and put it on the new one since the car I got the new dashboard out of was a New Yorker and I did nto think that would look good in a dynasty)

[Eric]

HOLY COW! I thought I do good changing my own headlights... My head hurts just looking at that.. WAY TO GO!
If it were me... there would be duct tape everywhere.... no take that back.. if it were me.. there would be a warped dashboard still in there.
Great job!

[Creighton]

Dang,
Job well done there. Will look great!!
And no airbag deploy :-)
Creighton

[scalebowler]

HOLY COW! I thought I do good changing my own headlights... My head hurts just looking at that.. WAY TO GO!
If it were me... there would be duct tape everywhere.... no take that back.. if it were me.. there would be a warped dashboard still in there.
Great job!

Thank you! I was really worried about starting this project since at first I thought that the AC system was attached to the back of the dashboard and then once I found out only the vents were I became worried about the vacuum lines that control the dampers for the heating and AC but once I decided to just go for it and get a dashboard I discovered that there was a nice little connector so that was good news.
I have to give my friend credit as well. Without him I would have had a very hard time getting any of this done and would not have had all the pictures showing how all the wires were connected. Next step is to try to get some rust repaired on the rocker panel and to replace the plastic housing that goes around the steering column because the wheel can tilt and the previous owner must have hit their knee on it a lot because there is this broken area right above the right knee and I lost the screw that secures it so I will just pick that up when I go to the junkyard again. Cool thing is I only have only a few extra parts (just a few screws and a plastic dust cover that I have to put back on later) and none are too important.

[scalebowler]

Dang,
Job well done there. Will look great!!
And no airbag deploy :-)
Creighton

Thanks!
You don't know how nervous I was when I went to reattach that battery. It was like in the movies where the guy defusing the bomb is hoping the wire he chose to cut was the right one

[Creighton]

Did you get my email on the civil defense stuff here on craigslist?
Creighton

[scalebowler]

Yes I did sorry about not replying sooner. I have been really busy the past few days with this dashboard repair and have not had a chance to get on the emails as much as I normally am.

[kbareit]

Nice job! Have to give you credit, you have more patience than I do.