Click HERE to go to A/C page Interior lights are the current project. I found 3 on EBay years ago, they were covered in a layer of grime and rust but cleaned up nicely. I had to insulate them on plywood as they are single contact and I wanted to control them with the earth wire through the BCM. I also had the original light from this car so used that over the front seat. There are also 4 floor lights and I have ordered globes in a colour to match the interior lights. More details on these lights further down the page.     Some work on the rear AC ducts March April 2022. I lined the rear panel with sound deadener, and taped the wires out of the way. Ductwork was complex as it needed to follow the roof shape. Note crease at top. I designed it as a taper to try to speed uyp with airflow as it got into the narrower space. I lined the inside with 2 mm wetsuit material to prevent condensation. The shape fits. There are 2 x 2 inch hoses feeding the bottom. Installed. You can also see the rear speakers under the mesh which will act as an air return for the AC unit mounted behind the seat. Since painted flat back to hide it all.   Rear AC unit is from Isuzu truck, NOS. I made the box to adapt 6 x 2inch hoses and lined it with wetsuit material, and then covered with sound deadener to prevent condensation. I chopped down a rear window LED brake light and made it smaller, then made a metal frame to attach to the top inside of the rear window frame. 8 hours work !!!   ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the re-enamelled Chrysler badge for the steering wheel Before it was re-enamelled Below is the 3pence I found in the LHR door when I dismantled the car years ago, it is now in the Volume control knob.     This car will have 3 seats, the front is the original bench dating from 1934, strengthened and now sitting on a 6 way electric base. The centre seat faces rearward and will seat 3. Under the seat is a heater and a pair of speakers. Behind the front and middle seats are all the electrics including batteries. The rear seat is an approximate rebuild of the original, slightly narrower as the wheel arches have been moved in 38 mm each side for tyre clearance. The rear A/C unit sits behind the rear seat, as does an amp for the rear speakers. For the centre seat I am using a commodore wagon unit and at this stage plan to be able to lay the back down for access to the electrics. I made a copy of the Commodore base and fabricated this

This is the underside of the Commodore seat, I made holes for the locking tags.

I went down to the local pool fence fabricator and he made me this pair of 16 mm alum pipes to feed hot water to the heater under the centre seat.

Welded the ends to stop the hose slipping off. The supports are hydraulic fittings.

Test fit. Heater fan and speaker holes shown: Note two A/C condensors under the rear floor, they will each have 2 x 10 inch fans

I found these 3 interior lights on EBay, not sure what they are. Had to blast off the rust on the bases and also sand it off the glass in places.

One switch was broken, I made a dummy button but disconnected them anyway. The bezels were a nightmare to polish, one got caught in the wheel and

took some time to get it straight again

This is the 3rd effort at a tunnel. First one was with the V6, then I tried to make it fit with the HEMI and 5-45 trans, then started from scratch and made this.

I made a couple of wire hoops to get my outline front and rear. Note the crappy repair to the floor where I had to cut it out to make the trans filler tube. Now fixed.

I cut out my shape and borrowed Alex's roller (Caloundra Sheet Metal)

Folded it to suit the wires. Folder is rusty living near the beach. It weighs 360 kg and keeps sinking in the sand !!

I used my nibbler to cut out the hole, useful tool but not worth the $500 investment, my shear gets 10 times more use. Below are the pain-in-the-foot

pieces that it leaves behind, they really hurt when you kneel on one in the carpet !!

So far so good. I welded the original handbrake lever onto a Commodore unit and also made my own inline shifter. (made my first one of those in 74)

Alloy pipes are for the rear heater.

At this point I was talking to a friend with a 33 Coupe who had to pull out his trans in the first week of driving his car. I realised that I would probably have to

pull off the entire front sheetmetal to do that so I cut it all out again. I know that this tunnel looks really deep. That is because the floor is dropped below the

top of the chassis rails for extra foot room. It should be level with the top of the sills but is now 2.1/2 inches lower.

Huge hole now allows me to get to everything easily. That trans is HUGE !! 6 speed Dodge Ram (5-45 RFE).

Next job is nutserts. I bought this little item on the web from Dafra in Melb, works a treat and is quick when you have 64 of them to fit !!

Now the two sides come out first, then the middle. I tacked a strip around the edge of the part I cut out, then drilled pilot holes through the lot, then did the

nutserts, then drilled out to 5.5 mm for the 5 mm screws. A mix of metric and imperial is confusing but I find 5 and 6 mm very useful.

Another view.

In Jan 2015 I had Steven Barnett make a new dash. It was not a taask I wanted to tackle because of the bead rolled into the bottom edge, and the two glove box holes

The original had a areal glovebox on the left, but the right was a fake. I decided that access to behind the dash would be useful so installed a real one on the right.

This is the dash as delivered by Steve made to my template. The glove boxes ended up a little outboard of the template, only about 4 mm per side but I can offset the lid to cover the error.

It came without the gauge holes, I glued some paper printouts of the actual gauges in place until I liked the layout. The A/C vent sits really close behind preventing the gauges being placed any higher up.

The gauges are Auto-Meter and they have a website that allows you to customise the look, then print out the design. Yanks are fairly dumb sometimes, the metric world (which is everywhere except UK and USA) always have speedo's that read in increments of 20 kph, Auto-Meter make them in 30 kph increments. I emailed the 'alleged' help desk but they didn't want to know about it, they wanted $10k for a new screen print !!! Otherwise I am happy with the product, they came in a wanky wooden box with dovetail joints and an engraved plaque on the with my name on it,, what a load of expensive wanky crap, I would rather have a correct speedo and a cardboard box !!!

The original dash had a near straight bottom edge which would have left a lot of the A/C exposed, and also the bigger 5 inch gauges would not have fitted. Easier to start again than modify the original.

When installed it looked too vertical and although it was flat, actually looked like it had a dip in the centre. I used the shrinker on the bottom lip to give it a bit of curve.

You can see below that I will beed to make a cover for the A/C heater and the wipoer motor which fits over to the left. The speakers will mount in this cover.

This is the original dummy glove box, I was gunna fit the clock and tacho one in each but decided they would look better on the actual dash.

After all the good stuff like the gauges and the steering wheel, the part that lets it all down is the steering column. I guess it is a trade-off of having controls at my fingertips while driving.

Refer to steering page for more on making the wheel fit. The plastic shrouds are the ugly part, I thought about hand forming some new ones out of aluminium but not sure I could get it right.

I think the answer will be to fill the corners with a fibre-filled epoxy (bog) and then grind it down to a circular shape to match the hub. More on this later.