My first fiberglass project

[74on40s]

Well, as this being my first post i guess you figured im a noob here....But you gotta start somewhere.
I just thought i would share some progress of my interior renovation as it being my first fiberglass attempt ever lol...so far i think it's turning out pretty good.

Keep in mind this all started when i ordered some new corbeau baja ss seats to replace the worn out bench seat and it all kinda exploded from there.

I pulled the dash pad off thinking that i could just spray it with some interior paint and it would look half decent... Well, thats what i get for thinking. The foam backing was seperating from the metal frame and the metal frame was starting to rust on the drivers side, so i figured what a better time to strip it down to the frame and start from scratch. What a p.i.t.a that was. Being that it was my first time glassing i learned some do's and don'ts for it lol.

Although after pulling the dash pad off and seeing the wiring mess underneath made me want to drive back to the guys house and ask him what he was thinking ( of course alot of other things were running thru my mind ) but being that it's a public forum i will keep it polite. I could tell he was a carpenter. Everthing was just ran w/o any care and everything was wire nutted. He went the extra mile and bought a complete painless harness for in the truck and turned around and made it painfull. I bet ya theres at least 100 wirie nuts behind there. So now i get the joy of fixing all that as well.  Anyhow here are a couple pics to get you up to date on my progress. My seats should be here tuesday so i have to fab up some brackets for them as well. And my headliner material should be here this week also. I'll update as progress is made.

[74on40s]

after doing some fiberglass and my arms itching like crazy

[1983stepside]

wow that dash looks great man, for the first time useing fiber glas it looks good, whats the plans for the rest of the interior? besides the seats, you going to make a center console? any and all other mods you do be sure to post pics of what your doing keep it up man

[Irish_Alley]

on horse power or one of those shows one guy was doing fiber work with out no gloves or anything on i was like hate to be him in a hour

[frogman68]

Wash up with COLD water wont itch as much (warm or hot water will open your pores)

[heavychevy91]

wow, thats looks a whole lot better than my first fiberglass job...

[74on40s]

Thanks,

I learned real quick how messy fiberglassing was, before i knew it my gloves were stuck together and i couldn't let go of the brush.

I'm glad to be on to the body filler stage but man o man i don't think i have ever sanded anything so much. But then again I'm very particular on how i want it done and I'm only doing it once so I'm doing it the right way.

I ordered some autometer gauges for in it tonight, stoked about that. Has anyone ever used the electric oil pressure and electronic temp gauges before? I got them thinking that running wires is going to be alot easier than fishing the 1/8th copper tubing up thru the dash. We'll see i guess.  I also bought some hyper LED blue light bulbs. I'm going to drill a 3/16 hole in the back of the gauge and glue them in along with the light that is included with the gauge to give them a blue glow at night, I'll let you know what comes of that.

I plan on doing a fiberglass consol with some kind of subwoofer enclosure and amp rack, just not sure as to how I'm going to do it yet. I had two 12" audiobahns behind the seats before i tore everything out, i would somehow like to incorporate them back into the truck, as they sounded amazing and i enjoyed the back massage after a long day at work.

I hope to have some more updated pics tomorrow with my seats and hopefully the final sanding stages of the dash. I'll be sure to post them when i can.


P.S.... I'm also looking for ideas on what to have air brushed on the dash. So I'm open to suggestions.

[bigwillie82]

skulls are cool. i put that on a fork lift for a guy lol.

[Captkaos]

Nice work.!

[Thermonuclear]

I like this a lot. I hope you don't mind if i steal it >.>

[74on40s]

thanks for the compliments.... Im deffinately ready for it to be done. My arm feels like its gonna fall off. I know one think, im not looking forward to doing the center console.

I got some more work done tonight, which in the end made me wanna kill the previose owner even more. I shoulda took pictures of it but i counted 103 wire nuts that i took out from under the dash. I almost have all of it straightened out. What a nightmare, and i absolutely hate wireing. About the only thing i have to wire back up is the dome lights to the door switches and run the wires for the new electronic gauges.

I sanded down the lower section of the dash and sprayed it tonight, i think it turned out pretty nice for spray bombs and clear cote w/ metal flake. I tried taking pics but i don't believe they do it any justice.

My seats came in yesterday and i got the mounting frame done, now i just have to figure out how in the world im going to mount them to the floor. I guess i deserve it for being cheap and not paying corbeau 200 bux for seat brackets. But oh well, i have a welder and a grinder 

I think im going to pass on the airbrushing of the dash. One, i have no idea what i want put on it and Two. I really don't want to wait about 3 weeks to get it back. The truck has to be done and out of the garage by next week and between working a full time job and 40+ hrs a week at a part time job my only time to work on it is at night. Now here it is 1:25a.m and i just finished for the night.

[74on40s]

some more pics to cover me till this point....

The las picture in this group is what the dash usta look like.

[Grover 1]

Really looking good!  Keep the dash pics coming.

[1983stepside]

looks good man i love the dash i may try to do something like that with my old dash pad in the winter months after my truck is done, just to see but looks good keep the pics comin

[beastie_3]

Nice progress!