Carpokes Porsche Forum

Between procrastinating, managing this site and all the 3D printing stuff, cleaning up under the dash, family issues, and everything else, I finally got around to placing the recovered dash back in the car. Hoping to have some quality time over the weekend to pull it all back together, but we'll see....



Half way into it, I started saving all the wayward wiring I pulled out from under the dash. You can't see them in this picture, but the pièce de résistance were the wire nuts used to connect the aftermarket speaker wires -- 120v nuts just like the kind in your house, with the wires doubled over a couple times so the nut could grip them, and then 'crimped' (i.e., smashed) with plyers. The rear speaker wires appear to be 120v lamp cord. I mulled replacing it all, but just got rid of the wire nuts in favor of soldered connections for now. All courtesy of Circuit City circa 1986 I'm sure.



Pretty motivating to see it start to take shape. Hopefully, I'll be able to spend some real time on it over the weekend.

Looking good. The car should be ready just in time for the warmer days of Spring.

You are a brave and patient man Tom. It's looking good, the leather gives it a nice touch.

While it's apart, would you take a few pictures of the ground points under/behind the dash? I think it'll be a good reference for someone experiencing ground related cluster issues.

Fast951 wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 10:46 am You are a brave and patient man Tom. It's looking good, the leather gives it a nice touch.

While it's apart, would you take a few pictures of the ground points under/behind the dash? I think it'll be a good reference for someone experiencing ground related cluster issues.

Dash is already back on -- at least for that purpose. I'll go through the pics I did take -- there may be some in there of the grounds. I actually did unbolt one as part of cleaning up the wiring under the dash. Between Circuit City and the original owner, and 25 years of one-off projects in my garage, the wiring under the dash was just a nightmare. It's better now -- no award winner -- but better....

A picture is worth a 1000 words. Hopefully you captured a few.

I finally buttoned up the new dash/interior parts and took the car out for a short spin today.


When the car looked like this, I did wonder seriously if it would ever go back together.



Need to clean things up, but here is the 'after' picture! Still mulling whether I like the center armrest. Leaning toward re-doing it in all black, or maybe black with red stitching....





Never do this. Wrapping the a-pillars makes them pretty, but horrifically difficult to re-install....

@Tom I vote for an all black center armrest. IMO, adding red stitching would be too much since there is already red stitching in the armrest surround section. Less is more. BTW, the dash looks great!

A true labor of love. That is one unique and absolutely stunning ride. I hope you will now have the time to truly enjoy.

Hawk wrote: Wed Apr 06, 2022 2:43 am A true labor of love. That is one unique and absolutely stunning ride. I hope you will now have the time to truly enjoy.

Definitely a labor of love. I've got countless hours into the car. It's kind of my automotive pacifier. I'm now mulling getting it wrapped with some kind of Carpokes livery. Just haven't found the right place to design and install that yet....but open to suggestions.

Looks amazing Tom! You will enjoy this for a long time.

What a great write-up and documentation on the process. Makes me want to pull out the cracked one in my red 944T and replace it with a non-cracked one.

Wasn't the dash already in perfect shape before you did all of this? Also wondering if a cracked up dash could have been used rather than one in perfect shape if you were going to have it re-covered in leather? I guess that would added some steps to get the cracking sufficiently flat though...

Oh, and I vote for all black on the armrest too. The extra trim on it looks pretty cool but seems like your arm might not like sitting on all of the stitching and decorations.