Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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Maybe a silly question but???? Why all the fill work for the dash? Loosing the seams I can get, but the radio?

Com'on, it's getting 40 series flowmasters on a 383, won't be able to hear a radio anyhow....


It's getting either a DIN or 2 DIN, neither of which belong in the dash. We will likely locate some AC vents there to get the cool air on the face... Need to source some good rectangular vents at a U-pull-it..

Finishing up on the radio holes...











Shaving the other seam, here bumping the panels to get a consistent height across the front...





The upper section would prove to need a bit more persuasion...





Tool modification...





A chunk of 3/4 square stock laid in dash void to use as fulcrum...





Heat applied...








Results... before..





After...














This view from the back side of weld dot penetration shows Kyle has pretty good consistency in weld dot sizing.

Originally Posted by MP&C

Com'on, it's getting 40 series flowmasters on a 383, won't be able to hear a radio anyhow....


It's getting either a DIN or 2 DIN, neither of which belong in the dash. We will likely locate some AC vents there to get the cool air on the face... Need to source some good rectangular vents at a U-pull-it..

Ah.. thanks for the info..

Today was the Spring Fling car show in Leonardtown so we took the opportunity to do some "window shopping" for vents to fit in the dashboard. With all this nice real estate now:





.....our plans are for some rectangular AC vents in the radio's original place. I always thought the "up in your face" vents do a better job of keeping you cool than the under dash ones that freeze the knees. So in no particular order, here are some sample vents..


1940 Ford "ashtray replacements" by VA... Although small, thought these may work toward the outside in the same "band" area of the dash...











Grand National...








Lower dash vents for a 65 Impala...








I like these and the dual parallel deflector vanes over the 55 factory, which is a ball vent with a wide open hole.


These next ones are the ones I'm leaning toward for the dash center as they are an easier install than most of the GM ones of the era. The GM vents have a solid pivot shaft at either end that would require making a saddle and clamp deal to hold it in place. The Fomoco style shown here has the pivot pin on a tab that springs inward for installation/removal, so it requires two simple holes. A much easier fabrication of needed ducting.. if we need to fabricate..

















This had no AC vents, but was a super clean ride, and still sported the Straight 8 under the hood, so consider this complimentary eye candy!





More VA pieces, these are nice and compact








I like the rectangular for the center of the dash but worry these round style vents may "clash" with rectangular ones. So the 40's small rectangular may be a good option for the side vents. Thoughts, personal choices, ones we haven't shown (with pictures) are welcome. This build really isn't a billet type, so black and chrome are a preferred option. Thanks in advance for any advice/pointers..

Love the Tomatoe strippped Sarsky and Hutch Gran Torino!

I agree with you, the outer ones on the 40 would work well with either of the rectangular units.

The rounds won't look "right" imo..

FWIW, my 76 Vette has round ones in the bottom corners of the dash and 2 horizontal ones above the center instrument panel, looks fine to me.

My 72 C10 has a horizontal one top center in dash and round ones on each end.

Originally Posted by NTFDAY

FWIW, my 76 Vette has round ones in the bottom corners of the dash and 2 horizontal ones above the center instrument panel, looks fine to me.

Wasn't that pretty much a standard design feature for Chevrolet/GM through much of the '60's through most of the '70's? Their round, infinite spin, no stops vents were used on the ends of many dashboards, with a variety of vertical or horizontal vents in the center, seems to me? Of course, CRS arises too often......

While I agree with the concept of "up in your face" AC vents, the idea of cutting holes of any shape in that newly shaved and smoothed dash would be hard for me....

My 69 chevelle nomad has the rounds and rectangular.

First, thanks to all for their input on dash vents. I'll have to agree that these shoebox cars lend themselves more to curves, but given the long, flat, rectangular mounting surface in the center of the dash, it seemed that two round vents would not begin to fill the void. Thus we were leaning toward the rectangular vents to fill the space. Dana wanted to keep the outside vents round, and mount below in the factory location. So these are the ones decided on, Vintage Air pieces...


for the corner locations.....



for the center of the dash.......




Of course, something told me to keep looking, and as someone had suggested to do the Google image search on "dash vents", I skipped the catalogs this time and looked at installed vents. Then it hit me, how could I have not seen this before.....





Three wide in the round vents vs. only two did a better job of filling out the dash and would give us matching vents all around. So, with only two round on order (and two rectangular that will likely go back), we plan to see how "tight" these 2-5/8 round bezels look on a 2-3/4 high flat area, and make the final decision from there.. The saga continues..


Now with the dash seams all welded and waiting for gauges to be delivered, the moment I've been dreading. Installing the Rocky Hinge fuel "door". First thing noticed was that some of the holes on the weld-in mounting plate were off by half a hole..





So Kyle cut out a fresh piece of 14 ga crs to make a new one, a bit oversized to trim later. Used some transfer punches to get the bolt holes lined up a bit better on our version of the weld-in plate..











Attachment screws fitting better already....





To provide the proper "pressed" countersink, we broke out the tubing flare kit...





Redneck press...






Our lower "die" was a 1/2-13 nut, centered over the hole, perimeter marked, and then taped in place before locating this into the press. Hey, it wasn't pretty, but it worked!








Some trimming of the hole to provide room for the weld-in mounting plate....











Test fit of the tail light housing showed the opening was a bit wide, especially to the inside towards the tailgate. So some glancing blows with too large a hammer provided a bit of stretch in this inner valley to persuade the panel over to the left, tightening up the opening....





A bit better here, but more tweaking will be needed on the outside before the mounting plate gets welded in place..

More excellent work, and excellent photos/explanations of the steps. I especially appreciate your "redneck press" explanation, which gives a very efficient method of getting the job done using items on hand in unique ways. Thanks for that.

I noticed Kyle's weld penetration photo in post #496. I think this young man may have a bright future in auto body work. The combination of youth and experience is very evident in this build. A great teacher and a willing student at work here.