looking good man. didnt know you were doing the dash swap. how dose wiring in the new cluter go? or by chance are the connecters the same? its a project im seriously considering for winter 09.
I think Im going to be using the fox door panels for a little while and then getting a set of gray door panels and custom making some to fit. I just want to get the dash done and work on getting that out of the way and then moving on to wire hiding and stuff like that. As for the gauges, I will be getting a Florida 5.0 autometer gauge cluster to make the install that much easier. Plus I love the way that looks. Other wise all the wiring will be from the 89. Im gonna need to get the wiring diagrams for the 98 and the 89 for the multifunction switch and the headlight switch. Its alot of work but it'll get done sooner or later. An as for Mustang week this year, I think that may be pushing it. If I finish it close to it I wont be going because I'm gonna want to drive it alot locally to make sure I have all the bugs out of it. Well see. Im about to head home to get ready to go to the shop. Havin this week off of work has really allowed me to get alot of work done.
ok im not one to admit this usually, but im jealous already of what this car is gonna look like when your done. good work bro. oh..an i might have to pay you to do the dash swap...one day, when i find the fox i want lol. keep postin pics
hahah thanks tyler, I'm hopin this thing is gonna come out nice. We'll see tho. Here are a couple more pics. I AM gonna end up doing the SN style door panels. I bought a set of white 7 up door panels for 30 bucks off ebay to hack up and attach the sn section onto and then fiberglass something up to make it look all good. I also got the car steering with the SN steering column with the bearing in the firewall and used the SN steering rack and simply screwed on the Fox inner tie rods. I also hacked up the SN and Fox A pillar trim to match up to the dash. They fit pretty well. I will be molding on a tweeter mount and fleecing it and then covering it with black vinyl to make it look pretty. I also bought a defroster vent cover and cut that to fit. The dash fits up to the firewall perfectly now and pretty much looks factory. I can't wait to finish all the wiring and stuff so this thing will be in for good!!
Enjoy:
Action shot!!!
Yes I know they look haggard for now but it will look nice when I'm done with it.
Progress is going to slow down because I will only be able to work on it on weekends now. I may be able to work on it during the week after work but we'll see. I had all last week off of work so I think I used that time pretty affectively to get some solid progress goin on her. Thanks for the comments guys!
Dude...that mock-up of the door panels looks awesome. You GOTTA go that direction. I know you can make it work really well. You are doing a really nice job, keep taking your time like this to do things right, it will pay off.
Let me know when you open your own shop. I wanna work for you...or at least bring my car to you for work! After seeing that 82 GT in your shop AND the progress on your car...I'm a beleiver.
Car looks great.....plus its t-tops,its gonna be sick(good sick)lol.Where in jersey are you?I see you can weld,wanna weld up some torque boxes?I would rather weld them before they break, if i am gonna run a sticky tire this year.
Thanks Bill!! Thanks to my friends I got really motivated on the door panel thing. I'm still meaning to get some pics up on here of the 82. Hopefully in the next month or so I will be bringing that thing into the shop to start the body work on it. Its gonna be gorgeous. And I'm hoping one day I will be able to buy the shop I'm currently at. Its a bit small but there are always options of expanding.
And as to Rick James, if you want, you can bring your car by my shop to get an estimate. I will be installing the battle boxes on my buddies 85 so I could give you a pretty good estimate on how long it would take me. I'm located in Morris County NJ.
Nice job so far. Since Hack Job is gone, somebody had to do an SN95 dash swap!! lol
A couple of tips and things to be aware of for you.
Since you are using the 94+ door panels and handle you need to consider what you will to do for the door latch. The fox handle uses a hard rod to push the door latch to release it. The 94+ handle uses a cable to pull the door latch to release it. I saw one guy just get two 94+ door latches and cut that portion off and weld it to the fox latch. It worked fine. Another thing you can do...which I would not want to attempt this is to: Get the two 94+ door latches and two 94+ strikers. You would have to weld up the old 3 holes in the fox doors and drill 3 new ones for the 94+ latch. The bolt pattern on the newer latch is much smaller than on the fox. Just two options for you.
If the molding of the A-pillar trim doesn't go well...and I'm not saying it will go bad....you can get 86 and older A-pillars. They have a different shape at the meeting of the dash and fill the gap pretty good. That's what I did on Hack Job.
Make sure when you are bolting the column in the dash you have the steering shaft and rack and pinion fully bolted in. You just want to make sure everything is square. I fought getting my column straight, but I fianlly got it with some small tweaks here and there.
Do you plan on using a 94+ E-brake handle? I found that I had to because with the position of the new console, the fox handle would not work.
I'm just throwing these things out there for you because everybody does this dash swap different. No two dashboards are going to be cut and bolted in the same, so everybody can get away with doing things their own way. When I did this swap, I had questions and nobody could ever answer them. All the site like Modular Fords and modfox...they didn't help at all. Very little action on those sites.
Also...if you need ANY parts to complete this swap, PM me and we can handle it that way. I have tons of parts and if you are missing any, I'll help you out at a reasonable price.
Yea Im going to use the handle and latch assembly's from my 98 parts car. I just bought the rest of the trim peices off ebay for pretty cheap. I wish I had know you had stuff (duhh). I'll keep you in mind if anything comes up. Also, the 98 rack is in place and the car steers and all that stuff. I will look into the 86- a piller trim. THat may help a bit. Thanks for the comments and suggestions!
Looks great man. I like how you did your radiator support, a little different than we did, but it still looks great. I think your right, it does look a little more proportional to everything else. We went with 1.5 tubing just because of the other bars in the engine bay.
The dash project is looking good. good to see some nice fabrication. +1 on using the sn door panels. think it would look a little funny with the fox panels, mainly because of the location of the door handle. but looks really good. if i was a little closer to ya, i would give you a hand if you ever needed, but indiana is a little far of a drive. if i only was rich and had a private jet. well anyways keep up the good work
No problem. Everything looks like it's going along great. The 94+ heater box will fit no problem. You'll see where you have to make some changes to the way it bolts up and being that your car is newer than my 81....you might not have to modify the firewall for the heater and ac hoses/tubes to go through. The 81 firewall needed some modifying done...more than what an 87+ firewall looked like. Just make sure nothing rubs. I put that black door edge protecting trim on the firewall where the heater core hoses and a/c hoses went into the car. Cheap insurance!