GEM '62

I am about to buy a dash pad for my 62. Who has the better pad, Corvette America or Al Knock? Al has his pad on sale at $361 with free shipping. I can buy CA's from Zip for the same price, plus tax of approx. $20. The costs are about the same so quality has to be the deciding factor. Any opinions?

wmf62

my 62 Al Knoch dashpad is about 36 years old, one of the very first he made; it's getting brittle but still looks good.

Bill

jasonsamara

I removed zero foam with my ak pad. I would recommend them. Check eBay, I got my ak pad off of eBay straight from ak $50 cheaper than their website. Maybe they had a surplus or something?

vettsplit 63

I just got thru installing a leather Al Knoch pad. Beautiful piece, (and expensive) and slid right up into place perfectly. But to be truthful, I did have to trim foam off the back side of where the instrument cluster locates, and the dash insert with grab bar on the right. I had some help by a friend who has done this before- and I'm glad I did.

Frankie the Fink

I like many of Corvette America's products but for this particular part I'd go with Al Knoch...just my personal opinion...

58horse

Recently installed AK pad. Very nice product but I did have to trim foam behind the instrument cluster. Just make sure your cluster will go back far enough before you glue anything.

GEM '62

I just checked ebay, Al Knoch dash pads $300 with free shipping. Thanks for the heads up.

ptjsk

I purchased my pad (Al Knoch) through Wilcox Corvette. I was able to use the coupons they advertise here on the forum, and I saved quite a bit of money.

Pat

Frankie the Fink

As to glue...its needed along the front pad flap where it goes down into the window channel and a bit along the sides of the gauge cluster and maybe a dab at the PS dash insert. If you think you have to use a bunch of it then you're doing something wrong or have a crappy part...

roju1985

What glue do you recommend? I've has an al knoch pad sitting in the box for over a year and I think this winter I'll finally punish myself and put it in.

desertpilgrim

You may have to trim a little off an AK pad, but I think that's just a case of Al being careful to allow for a "black sheep" basket case coming back from a place you don't want to go. When I did a dash pad article for The Corvette Restorer in 1982(?), I was "awash" in trimmed off foam and in details about trouble spots. I was impressed with AK's subtle and quick updates and corrections. In comparison, today's pads almost install themselves.
No direct experience with CA.

Frankie the Fink

I just used the garden variety Weldwood contact cement you can get in the amber bottle at Ace Hardware..

vettsplit 63

i agree with Frankie. I bought a quart of the stuff that AK sells. It's just ok. I have used other adhesives that have a much higher bond strength, and you don't have to keep going back and resticking edges where it comes up.

0Willcox Corvette

My 2 cents on this one.. We've installed every pad ever made I think.. I've installed NOS dash pads, early CA pads (junk), early Al pads (decent) and newer CA pads and even the newest CA pad which in my opinion is the easiest pad to install.

The last three pads we installed were CA brand and they fit like a glove.

Now.. in 2013 someone brought up the grain thing.. and that's a myth.. busted by this picture I took of my original 62 pad compared to the current reproduction pad. I still have this original pad and will keep it forever.



This is the green bean we did the installation on two years ago.


This is my car where we did the test fit for CA on the dash pad years ago.. the new pad is way better than this one too.


One thing to keep in mind when doing this job.. The speaker hole is your friend. If you get the pad to align with the speaker hole you'll be in good shape. Trimming for the speedo housing is a must but it must be done in the right manner. The same goes for the dash insert on the passenger side. You must make sure you trim it but you must also leave excess to be pinched in place by the insert when it's installed.

I made a cheater tool years ago for pulling the dash insert in place while leaving excess foam and vinyl behind the dash insert to be pinched. And if you looked at my original pad from my 62 you'll see that GM left his material there as well and for good reason.

Here is the tool.. and it works like a charm.


Heat is your friend.. get a wrinkle heat it and let it cool on it's own. The vinyl will shrink. Get something you need to manipulate, heat it, move it where it needs to be and then cool with a cold rag, it'll stay. But in most cases a wrinkle will be something you want out so just be patient and heat it like stated above.

I'm not knocking Al's pad, but that CA pad is the bomb compared to what we used to deal with.

IMHO,

Willcox

Frankie the Fink

I installed an early Romeo Engineering pad in my '61; malformed to say the least. I worked with it and worked with it and the fit was finally acceptable (barely); like CA's product I understand its been much improved.

If you use heat to help things out be darn careful....too much and you can melt that grain right out of the pad...