A while ago I was thinking up a way to make a completely custom dashboard for my Vette and I came up with the idea of using transparencies for the background. A design can be created on a computer and printed with an ordinary inkjet or laser printer. The image is printed backwards and painted over with white paint (because anything white in the image would be clear). Then the sheet can be glued to whatever you want with the shiny plastic side out so the image won't rub off.

Here's my first attempt with the idea:

It always seemed to me that do matter what you do, aftermarket switches look so completely out of place on most dashboards, so I hid them in the overhead console. Left is for the yellow fog lights I hid in the lower grill and the middle switch is so I can turn on the bed lights without the interior lights (handy for checking your cargo while driving). While I was in there I also rigged the bed light to come when backing up. Why Ford didn't do that in the first place, I'll never know.


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Mark
'00 Lightning
'79+ Corvette


[This message has been edited by Mark_2kL (edited 10-18-2000).]

 

Great Idea! How hard is routing the wires to complete what you desired??

 

Nothing difficult about the wiring, but it was time consuming. The Ford wiring manual made it a lot easier to find the wires I was looking for. Take off the console, the front pillar covers, the visors, and the dome light and the headliner will slide forward and you can take it completely out. There is a ton of room to run wires completely inside the steel structures all the way from the edge of the dash to up by the 3rd brake light.

Here are the fog lights in the lower grill:


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Mark
'00 Lightning
'79+ Corvette


[This message has been edited by Mark_2kL (edited 10-18-2000).]