Long Overdue Progress! Making New Door Panels 12/8/24

The inherent lack of quality in plastics and the fitment issues I see everyone having with even the "best" quality repro parts has me thinking I'll just rebuild all of my dash parts with fiberglass and filler to get it all shaped to fit correctly to my interior, then reskin and dye accordingly. The factory fit wasn't ever good on the dash components anyway, so might as well correct what needs correction. Thanks for sharing your approach to it.
 
Here is phase 2, all the cracked off and broken pieces repaired, the speedo and steering column holes eliminated. Ready for filler and glass.

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No digital. I have gauges and the layout will be speedo/tach but my steering wheel is moved over a little and its from a 96 so the hub is bigger and deeper. Also the steering wheel is smaller so the position of the gauges is different.

I suppose this is phase 2 still but I filled most of the gaps and am pretty close to skinning this with fiberglass.

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Looks good so far.

Moving the positions explains everything. 👍
 
I cut the holes for the gauge buckets but then realized they interfere with the hole for the steering column. So today I filled them back in.

1 step forward, two steps back!
 
bobs77vet said:
nice job cutting those ovals, it looks really good , what is going to cover it? a vinyl wrap?
Click to expand...
I am thinking about painting these with a mat charcoal metallic. But that depends on how good I can get the surface finish. If not good, I will probably wrap them.
 
So I filled in and recut the gauge holes but first I cut the hole for the steering column. Should have done this the first time (then I wouldn't have the steering hole breaking into the gauge holes). Installed it to check fit and gauge position for visibility through the smaller steering wheel. Looks good!

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that looks good, i wish some one at honda had done that with my wifes daily driver minivan, the gas gauge is completely hidden. worst location ever you cant see it. we have never run out of a gas but thats because of dumb luck.
 
It's pretty close. Still need to smooth in places. Also need to cut the flat patterns for the gauge bucket from ABS.

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Those vents look like the ones on my wife's old Pontiac G6. I thought they looked like a pretty close fit for the C3. My F150 also has similar vents. Which ones did you end up with? The price of new dash panels and all the fitment issues I always hear about really makes me want to follow your lead on the dash and repair what I have.
 
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