I have a 68 coupe. I just had my speedo and tach rebuilt, and I bought a new driver side upper dash pad from Corvette America. The chrome, oval top lip of the bezel appears to have to fit snuggly through the opening in the dash pad. I can slide the top of the bezel through OK, but I can't get the bottom of the bezel to show through the dash bad. As a result, I can't screw the bottom of the speedometer base to the back of the dash pad.

Is there some sort of trick to getting these bezels to fit through the dash pad so they can be secured with the 3 screws on the back?

Thanks for any help you can provide. I decided to stop messing with it for fear of damaging the pad.

 

Take the dash pad to an upholsterer. The vinyl may need to be taken loose, the hole opened up, and the vinyl re-glued.

 

Have you tried Vasoline?

You might try installing the instruments from the 'frontside' first, to stretch the hole to the right size.

 

Heat it with a hair blower.

 

Be careful with the heat. If you get that thin vinyl skin too hot, it will shrink/tear/shrivel before you can blink.

 

I just did this on my '76. I had to put the speedo and tach in at the top and slowly compress the material around the opening with my fingers while pushing the guages in from behind. Take your time and work slowly so you don't get any wrinkles in the dash padding at the bottom of the guages. Eventually you'll get to the point where you can install the bottom screw near the alignment tab.

Good luck!

Rodger

 

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions.

I tried a combination of heat gun and carefully place clamps. I tried the heat gun on the excess surface skin on the back of the pad to see what it would do. The stuff is remarkably tolerant to heat. I expected it to shrink and melt open. Instead it got soft and still retained the leather-like grain. So I warmed up the bottom half of the oval opening, and worked the bezel in from the back. I repeated this a few times, till I got the bottom bottom speedometer bracket to within 1/2" of the back of the pad. This allowed me to install the two top side screws to hold the speedo onto the pad.

Next I took a 5" wide piece of and placed it across the front of the pad, side to side. I placed two 18" clamps onto the speedo case, the other ends on the board, to squeeze the bezel into the hole as I heated the bottom front of the opening. I then installed a 1" coarse screw through the speedo bottom mounting bracker and tightened the screw as the bracket got closer to the back of the pad.

The chrome lip of the bezel now shows through all around, through I wish I could get the bottom maybe 1/8" more through the hole. It still looks pretty good though.

When I took the clamps and board off, I had two creases visible in the front of the pad, on each side. My heart sank. But I applied a little heat and both sprung back out like new.

 

my entire dash and door panels are new from corvette america i cant wait too see what surprises i am in for. All i hear is horror stories. i am thinking of selling it all and buying used equipment.

 

If you could find original panels in decent condition and refurb them and shoot new dye, that would have been the better choice.