[Vic1947]

In keeping with my goal to do as much myself as I possibly can on this build, I taped off the firewall and dash and laid down some color. A good shop would be more than capable of two-toning the dash like I wanted, but as I found, it was a bit time consuming.

I started by taping off the exterior areas I want HR Express to block and paint. The goal was to wind up with tape lines that would be hidden under moldings, fenders, w/s gasket and the like. I applied the Millennium Silver to both the firewall and the dash. I then spent about 2.5 hours masking the areas that would stay silver and shot the Firethorn Red Pearl basecoat.

After it had flashed off, I applied a couple of coats of urethane clear. I'd originally planned to do the top of the dash with matte clear, but with the silver basecoat against the gloss red, it somehow didn't look right. I thought it might look cool to have a low gloss dash like they did back in the day, but I changed my mind mid-stream.

Painted the gauge pod, glove box lid, ashtray, speaker grille and misc other parts while I was at it. I can now assemble the Dakota Digital gauges and the USB charger that goes in the ashtray. Will post photos when that's done.

I'm still on the fence about what color to paint the steering column. The gauge pod is silver and the lower cover is red, so there's a dividing line that more or less splits the column tube. The way I see it, the column could be either color. At first, I planned to do it in the red, but more recently, I'm leaning toward silver. This is the crazy stuff that happens when you deviate from the factory schemes.