Making of a 308 interior

Clark - is the dash opening wider than 4'? In other words, is that cut piece more than 4'?
The cut piece in the picture is 4' but in later photos you can see that it needs another inch to fully reach the pillars... hence the spray foam orange. The opening is 49 inches.
 
The cut piece in the picture is 4' but in later photos you can see that it needs another inch to fully reach the pillars... hence the spray foam orange. The opening is 49 inches.

Gotcha. Looking back at those pics I wasn't sure if the orange was intended to widen and contour the panel, or simply contour it. I picked up my sheet yesterday & had to cut it down to fit it in my hatchback, so I simply cut it into four 2x4 panels. When I got it home & held it up across the windshield, it appeared I had under-estimated the width. So, I'll just do as you did to rectify :D

The foil peels easily from one side, not so much from the blue plastic film side
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I'm leaning more & more to a hybrid version that uses the binnacle I like, with the dash body like yours. I don't like the later blob of a glovebox, and the tie in to the armrests just looks way better to balance the 'weight' of the dash. Looking at the baseline of the gauges, the later IP has a similar offset, so I should be able to follow your lead on the basic structure layout, then revise as I need to work the wider binnacle into it.
I'll have to make adjustments for the right side where the glove box meets the binnacle, and I may have to scrap that idea depending on how it looks 'in the flesh', but it gives me a starting place :)

Thanks for your pioneering work here :)
 
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Gotcha. Looking back at those pics I wasn't sure if the orange was intended to widen and contour the panel, or simply contour it. I picked up my sheet yesterday & had to cut it down to fit it in my hatchback, so I simply cut it into four 2x4 panels. When I got it home & held it up across the windshield, it appeared I had under-estimated the width. So, I'll just do as you did to rectify :D

The foil peels easily from one side, not so much from the blue plastic film side

I'm leaning more & more to a hybrid version that uses the binnacle I like, with the dash body like yours. I don't like the later blob of a glovebox, and the tie in to the armrests just looks way better to balance the 'weight' of the dash. Looking at the baseline of the gauges, the later IP has a similar offset, so I should be able to follow your lead on the basic structure layout, then revise as I need to work the wider binnacle into it.
I'll have to make adjustments for the right side where the glove box meets the binnacle, and I may have to scrap that idea depending on how it looks 'in the flesh', but it gives me a starting place :)

Thanks for your pioneering work here :)

Good job Hussein... I'm looking forward to what you have planned. :)
 
I was getting a bit bored with just shaping foam so I started work on the aluminum binnacle this evening: 1/8" aluminum plate. I used hole saws for the 3/4" and 2" holes. The gauges are just a tad over 2" in diameter so a little grinding was necessary with the dremel to make them fit. I had to throw out my drill press a couple of years ago though (it was too tired and worn out) so I've been using a 3/8 hand drill for this. I'm contemplating buying a 4" hole saw tomorrow for the larger holes but seeing how hot the hand drill got from the 2" holes I'm wondering if I should just use a jig saw and take my time. Then again holes with a jig saw never really turn out round so maybe the hole saw is a necessity and I'll just borrow a buddy's 1/2" drill.

aluminum.jpg
 
Wow, doing this by hand? Go buy the cheap harbor freight drill press and make life easier... Great job, keep up the excellent work!
 
Wow, doing this by hand? Go buy the cheap harbor freight drill press and make life easier... Great job, keep up the excellent work!

LOL - yeah - I know... In a past life I spent 7 1/2 years working as a wireman in a fabrication shop and we had a drill in our hand half the day. We were forever mounting things to backboards / drilling & tapping copper, aluminum etc. It's really not that bad. Old habits are hard to break :eek:
 
I was getting a bit bored with just shaping foam so I started work on the aluminum binnacle this evening: 1/8" aluminum plate. I used hole saws for the 3/4" and 2" holes. The gauges are just a tad over 2" in diameter so a little grinding was necessary with the dremel to make them fit.

Nice - I understand the need to switch things up to keep it from getting stale ;D

I also bought a (larger) sheet of 1/8" aluminum (forget what grade offhand) for my IP. I'm actually not convinced it needs to be that heavy gauge. I also have an assortment of .0625" H1101 plate (which is pretty rigid) so I may try that first once I have some cardboard mockups to work with. Your post reminds me I don't have larger holesaw cups with undamaged teeth, so I'll need to work that out. I've never used a press for this stuff, even when I bored through a 2" block for my modified plenum / TB setup with a 3" holesaw :D

What surface finish are you going for? I was thinking a (treated) brushed finish would prolly make sense.

As an aside, my vinyl arrived yesterday, the texture looks pretty good to me.
 
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Nice - I understand the need to switch things up to keep it from getting stale ;D

I also bought a (larger) sheet of 1/8" aluminum (forget what grade offhand) for my IP. I'm actually not convinced it needs to be that heavy gauge. I also have an assortment of .0625" H1101 plate (which is pretty rigid) so I may try that first once I have some cardboard mockups to work with. Your post reminds me I don't have larger holesaw cups with undamaged teeth, so I'll need to work that out. I've never used a press for this stuff, even when I bored through a 2" block for my modified plenum / TB setup with a 3" holesaw :D

What surface finish are you going for? I was thinking a (treated) brushed finish would prolly make sense.

As an aside, my vinyl arrived yesterday, the texture looks pretty good to me.

2" block? Now THAT is impressive!!! :cool:

1/8" is a little on the thick side to start with but by the time it is finished it will be so riddled with holes it will need the girth to keep from flopping around I would think. Brushed aluminum finish would look best in my opinion. I picked up some fine artificial steel wool to play with and see how far that gets. The 4" hole saw cost $29 this morning - so all in all not that painful. Much better than trying to get a round shape from a jig saw.

What type of vinyl did you choose again Hussein? Do you have a link or a pic?
 
For the "brushed" finish on your aluminum face plate, try using a sheet of extra fine grit wet/dry sand paper or a extra-extra fine Scotch Brite pad on a sanding block large enough to cover the entire width of the piece in one pass. This gives a consistent even finish. Doing it by hand with steel wool tends to leave the marks going in random directions rather than a nice straight pattern. You can alter the look by choosing differing grits of paper, how hard you press, and how many passes you make.
 
2" block? Now THAT is impressive!!! :cool:

1/8" is a little on the thick side to start with but by the time it is finished it will be so riddled with holes it will need the girth to keep from flopping around I would think. Brushed aluminum finish would look best in my opinion. I picked up some fine artificial steel wool to play with and see how far that gets. The 4" hole saw cost $29 this morning - so all in all not that painful. Much better than trying to get a round shape from a jig saw.

What type of vinyl did you choose again Hussein? Do you have a link or a pic?

These are the vinyls: I got them off eBay. $10.95/yard for solid & $6.45/yard for the perforated.

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have made a bunch of custom gauge panels for Fiats and as you discovered, a 2" hole saw won't make quite a big enough hole for the smaller Fiat gauges. I used my air grinder to make the holes a bit larger. For the speedo and tach would use my saber saw rather than a large hole saw.
 
Got enough time this weekend to mostly finish the binnacle. The four inch hole saw and jigsaw did their job and the extra-fine sandpaper worked great for the brushed finish. All in all I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The 5 led lights are a bit larger than the Ferrari's but they will work. I still have to figure out the two pots in the center. I have a friend looking at his old electronics stock this weekend to see if he has anything that will work. Should I be coating the aluminum or just let it oxidize?

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I have used Eastwood clearcoat for metal on an aluminum motorcycle frame I refinished and it's held up well. Alternatively you could just give it a squirt of WD40 or ACF50 to protect against oxidation.
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Got enough time this weekend to mostly finish the binnacle. The four inch hole saw and jigsaw did their job and the extra-fine sandpaper worked great for the brushed finish. All in all I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The 5 led lights are a bit larger than the Ferrari's but they will work. I still have to figure out the two pots in the center. I have a friend looking at his old electronics stock this weekend to see if he has anything that will work. Should I be coating the aluminum or just let it oxidize?
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Nice Work! I'm going to use a good clear coat on mine, just to keep it clean looking & level out the brushed surface. U-Pol is the brand I usually use, cheap ones are not UV resistant in general.

I've been busy this weekend with the flocking device I setup for GIJoe heads - I may use it to flock parts of the dash / glovebox etc., :D

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Excellent job on the dash panel!

I used those same "jeweled" lens LED dash lights before, they really aren't big for the period.

Knobs for the pots, look at some classic electric guitar controls for ideas. I found some I liked at a old-school electronics store several years ago and used them for all of the control knobs on a custom car project.

Aluminum protection look at "Shark Skin", or possibly a 'flat' version of the clear coat for bare metal (available in rattle cans).

I like the "Riven", done a few custom vintage bikes myself. Funny, they aren't "vintage" to me but everyone else calls them that.

Those GI Joe heads displayed that way look like a VooDoo grave yard/ritual/worship site.
 
Started work on the tunnel center console again tonight... To provide more room for the levers (or in my case switches) the parking brake handle was angled up a few inches. There was enough slack in the cable to add a few 1/2" nuts and washers under the front two bolts which lifted it high enough to do the trick. Now when the parking brake is lowered completely there should be adequate clearance.

The shifter on the X is in the center of the tunnel compared to more on the driver's side on the 308 and it looks to be a tad further back as well. This will mean another deviation from the ferrari design. (I suppose I could rework things to make it identical but it's not that big of a deal for me TBH.) I'm also wondering at this point about not making the shifter gated. From reading other threads on this forum it seems that shifting on the fiat is considered to be so sloppy that it may not be possible to make a gated shifter work. I supposed it wouldn't hurt to just mock one up out of cardboard and see.

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Very cool. You may have noted this already, but the handbrake in the X is the same as in 308's
 
Nice Work! I'm going to use a good clear coat on mine, just to keep it clean looking & level out the brushed surface. U-Pol is the brand I usually use, cheap ones are not UV resistant in general.

I've been busy this weekend with the flocking device I setup for GIJoe heads - I may use it to flock parts of the dash / glovebox etc., :D

413_D5_FAA-4_CBC-4535-9204-_BE697_FD63161.jpg


CE38313_D-2006-4_E2_B-_B37_D-_D35965343312.jpg
This might give me nightmares
 
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