Auto Restoration 101

This 1964 Oldsmobile Cutlass dash & instrument panel was made to look brand new with just a little paint work and a whole lot of cleaning. The major expense was getting the pad restored by Just Dashes in California. They did a great job on it and it looks brand new.

The instruments all worked so we were fortunate not to have to get them repaired. The dash was fully disassembled so everything could be cleaned and polished. None of the chrome plating was re-plated, it was all cleaned with some #0000 steel wool and some polish. The black insert was cleaned and repainted semi-gloss black. The screen insert was repainted silver.

Make sure when you disassemble the dash to keep track of all the pieces. Place the small parts such as small screws in freezer bags and write on the bag what it goes to. If you have a digital camera it’s very helpful to take lots of pictures to help with the re-assembly. You can download them onto your computer and then print them off later when you are ready.

Now would be a good time to replace all of the bulbs and check all of the wiring for fraying or to see if any are broken. Check out a couple of my earlier posts on how to remove the ignition switch and headlight switch.

Clean and lubricate the heater control cables with WD-40 or something similar.

This is the dash before we started. Looks really bad.

This is a close up of the gauges and heat controls.

This is the screen insert and radio opening.

If you have a digital camera take close up pictures like this just in case you forget how it goes back together.

This shows the instruments after the lens was cleaned and the black was painted on. Use 3M blue fine line tape for nice detail lines and for taping around curves.

This is the screen insert that was painted silver. The silver really sets off the black and chrome.

The completed instrument panel looks great and is ready to install back into the car.

The dash pad and the instrument panel really looks great back in the car.