Chirco
is building a Baja Bug! Many of the air - cooled VW
parts and procedures used can also be used on Dune Buggies,
Sand Rails. These pages feature links to the Chirco
online parts catalog.
PART
22-Installing
the Dash Panel, Gauges and switches.
It
is time to get the dash put together. Since we can not
get the carpet kit in until we have ran all of our wiring,
we decided to get the dash in so the wiring harness
can be made.
As
you can see from the first photo, we cut out the
original dash. We are going to install an
aluminum dash in it's place. I need to tell
you that we have never seen one of these
dashes that fit perfectly out of the box.
They need a little tweaking.
We
set it place and marked the center of where the
speedometer is going to go. After that we
used a square to make a consistent plane that
the rest of the gauges will follow.
After all
the line were drawn we double checked that all
the gauges were in clear sight. The
Speedo we will not be able to see below 20mph
or above 100mph. (after 100, what does it matter?)
With a hole saw, we cut the first two holes.
Then the three smaller holes were cut the same
way with a smaller hole saw.
Please remember
that it is best to be a little small than a little
to large Again the
dash was put back in place to align where
the switches and indicator lights will go.
Again we
put the
dash back in to mark the holes we will have
to drill to mount it to the old dash. We are using
torque screws with beveled washers.
We used three screws on each end and three
across the top and another three along the bottom.
To finish this project, we will have to remove
the
dash and all it's components so we can sand
down the face of the
dash and polish it. Then rebuild it and re-install
it.
If you have any
questions or comments about Project Baja please e-mail
don@chirco.com
we sure would like to hear from you.