It is PITA, but not impossible. If you have a radio console, remove it.
There are straps along the bottom that are screwed to the firewall, remove
them. Remove the flexible defrost hoses. Undo the heater control cable in
the engine compartment, it will pull through the firewall attached to the
dash board. Remove the temp sender carefully from the engine head, the temp
sender tube will also pull through the firewall. Pull out on the bottom of
the dashboard gently, there are four nuts attaching the top lip of the
dashboard to the firewall. If I remember right, one is above the
speedometer, it might be easier to reach with the speedometer removed. Once
the four nuts are off, the padded dash will pull away from the firewall. Be
careful not to break your turnsignal and wiper handle. With the dashboard
pulled away, you can access all of the wiring to the instruments, and
switches. If you have the wiring color codes available, it isn't necessary
to label the wiring, if you don't have it available, it is a good idea. As
they say in Haynes, installation is reverse of removal.
The dash panel dimmers only take the gauge lighting from dim to dimmer to
off, if it works at all (most by this time don't) your 69 should have a
toggle switch on the left side of the steering wheel cowl to turn instrument
lights on and off. You can take the wires from the switch, and hook them to
the dimmer, or just remove the dimmer and plug the hole.
David Riker
63 Falcon
70 Torino
74 Midget
http://home.pacbell.net/davriker/
----- Original Message -----
From "James Algar" <jamesa at HI-TORQUE.com>
To: "Spridget List (E-mail)" <spridgets@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: '69 Dashboard
> Has anybody pulled/replaced the dashboard on a '69 (or later) Spridget? On
a
> scale of 1-10, how big of a pain in the posterior is it? Mine is severely
> cracked and split, and the "glue-on" covers available just don't do it. I
am
> looking at a replacement dash that seems to be in good shape; it has one
> item on it that my dash doesn't have, an instrument light dimmer knob, so
> I'm assuming this is from a '70s car of some vintage. Other than that, it
> looks like my '69. Will it fit?
>
> Thanks,
> Jim Algar
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