What’s your plans on the custom dash and electrical? I’m curious about that push button ignition

 

Well...the dash will be flat across the entire top & the vertical piece will fold down for easy access to all relays, fuses & wiring. Probably only have temperature, oil pressure & volt meter gauges? Not much need for a tach or speedo. Other than brake lights, everything else will be controlled with a push button switch.

Thinking about covering the plywood dash & door panels with this material (poker table speed cloth), then use stainless gauges & switches?

 

Looking forward to the custom interior.
great build so far!

 

OK, back with a little progress to report. Been chasing a non-existent overheating problem that slowed down the project, but that’s another story.

Dash work is almost done.







Made new door panels. Probably finish the bottom of the door with some type of heavy duty material?




A little bench testing the switches & relays, figuring out all the RGB switch lighting etc.




Building the fuse block, relay & distribution panel.






More dash work with gauges & switch panels…and a test fit.







Wire is on order, but not sure l’ll get the wiring done before it gets too cold.

 

Anybody see anything they could use? Let me know, garbage truck comes on Tuesday. 🙂

 

great work so far.
i hated dealing with some of the hack job wiring i found on my old 81 Trekker.
Just a suggestion to swap out that backer board you used for the distribution panel and go to a thin sheet of plywood or aluminum with some rubber grommets where you are running the wires.
i understand that backer board is easy to work with but i learned it doesn't hold up well on some previous projects i had used it on. Mounting points cracked with the vibration of the truck.

 

Thanks for the suggestions Dropzone.
The plan is for the panel to be housed in a split level “compartment” with the switch/distribution wires coming in from the ends on the lower side with grommets. The compartment will be mounted to a couple of brackets between the battery & the firewall using some vibration absorption washers. The only other wires visible on the top side will be a ground wire, main power from the battery & another power wire from one of the spare fuses to a bus bar on the back side of the dash, which will feed power to the switches, gauges & gauge lights. Another bus bar on the back of the dash will be used for all the ground wires. Stay tuned…. ✌️

 

A little more progress…

 

All electrical completed & new fuse/relay box installed. 👍

 

If you have this bracket , I would be very happy to take it off your hands

 

Sorry, but it’s in the landfill already. 😔

 

Hi. Cool build! Is there any chance you still have the original seat material under that Mexican blanket seat cover?? I have a 1980 SR5 that originally came with that bench seat and red tweed material. I would love to purchase a sample or the entire thing just to have something to shop for replacement material with. If not for sale, would you consider taking some detailed shots of the material and the vinyl bolsters with some measurements? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!

 

Sorry, l discarded the old seat material. 😔

 

Bummer. I understand, but I think it is a one year only fabric but I’m not sure about that. I’ll keep looking, but if anyone reads this in the future and has any of this material or a old cover(no matter the condition) please reach out to me no matter how much time has passed. It is much appreciated!

I have old VW busses too, and at this point we in the VW resto world would all love to have the scraps of interior panels we all threw away years ago when no one was restoring them. As time goes on, even the little things you think don’t matter becomes very valuable.

 

Like, space in the garage… 😔

 

Little update…dash, paint scheme, tires & wheels. 🙂

Yeah, floorboards next in the list. 😳

 

😎✌️